


The Curve of Old Bones

by Jenanigans1207



Series: Denial is a Hell of a Drug [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fake Marriage, Hand Jobs, Human AU, Idiots in Love, Less Like Slow Burn And More Like Two Idiots Standing About On Fire, M/M, NSFW in later chapters, Pining, Semi-Public Sex, Slow Burn, There’s only one brain cell and it belongs to anathema, everyone else knows they love each other, fake marriage au, flirting through bickering, journalist crowley, more pine than a forest, retired professor aziraphale, there's going to be SO MUCH pining, they don't really hate each other, they just annoy each other, they're just too stubborn to see it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:06:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 138,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27250180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenanigans1207/pseuds/Jenanigans1207
Summary: Aziraphale watches as Crowley’s smile grows, sharpens and turns distinctively dastardly. And even though Aziraphale knows what he’s in store for, he’s entirely unprepared for the words that slip out of Crowley’s mouth next. “Name’s Anthony Crowley, Aziraphale’s husband.”Aziraphale is eternally grateful that he wasn’t taking a sip of his tea at that exact moment for he would’ve surely choked on it.--When Crowley claims to be Aziraphale's husband to ruin what he assumes is a date, he doesn't think anything of it. But a day later it comes back to bite him in the ass when Crowley finds out that the date in question is, in fact, his new boss, who is looking to hire Aziraphale and hoping that Crowley, his husband, will put in a good word for them. Now Crowley is caught in a tight spot: either admit to his new boss that he was lying, or convince Aziraphale, his sort-of enemy, to pretend to be his husband to save face.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Denial is a Hell of a Drug [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2039054
Comments: 1098
Kudos: 595
Collections: Good Omens Human AUs





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, it's well established that I never learn my lesson and even though I swore to myself that I wouldn't start a new fic until I finished one of the ones I already have, this idea gripped me and refused to let go. So here we are, and I apologize in advanced for any sort of irregular posting schedule I have.
> 
> I am going to TRY REALLY HARD to update this on a weekly schedule because I do have a bit of a buffer. I've finished the next chapter and a few of the future scenes that I just need to jumble together so there's a CHANCE that I'll manage it. But I won't promise anything. If you know me from literally any other fic I've written, you know that I'm not good with consistent update schedules. I'm working on plotting it out, too, so hopefully by the time I post the second chapter next week, I'll have an official chapter count. I'm guessing somewhere around 15 (which is why I put that here), but I'll give an definite number next week! Who knows, maybe it won't change!
> 
> Also, I have marked this fic as Explicit. It's GOING to be, but it isn't yet. I will clearly state in the note which chapters have smut and I will do everything in my power to clearly outline where the smut is so you can skip over it if it's not your cup of tea. I wanted to mark it as explicit now, though, even though the rating won't be up there for a few chapters because I didn't want anyone sex adverse/any minors to get attached to the story and then find out that the rating is going up and being caught off guard by it. Again, I will do all that I can to make sure you can skip the nsfw parts and still enjoy the rest of the plot, but I just wanted to be clear about that up front. It's really important to me that everyone is comfortable while reading my stuff, so I wanted to be transparent. If there's anything additional I can do to help make it easier for people, please let me know! I don't anticipate any major TW/CWs but if any pop up, I will be sure to clearly outline them in the notes! I'll also update the tags, so keep an eye on those just in case :)
> 
> Otherwise, please enjoy this fic that is just a lot of them flirting via bickering and not realizing how they feel about each other! I'm really excited about this fic, I hope you guys are too!

The café up the street from his flat is Aziraphale’s favorite place to go when he still has research to do but is craving a change of scenery. 

He has a favorite table, one that is nestled in the back corner of the shop, one side pressed against the glass window. It is perfectly spacious— he could scatter his books around him, the pages catching the slanting light of the sun, and still have room for his tea, snack, and notepad. The café itself was typically quieter than most, making it very possible for Aziraphale to focus the way he needed to, flipping through pages of different textbooks and scribbling notes as he went. It was more than easy for him to spend the better part of a day here, piecing together what information he needed.

The café employees are truly lovely, some of the kindest people Aziraphale has ever known. Anathema seems to have a second sense about her, able to tell what days Aziraphale will be popping in, even if he never knows until only a few hours beforehand. She’ll keep an eye out for him and, when she spots him heading her way, she begins on his drink. It’s really rather charming, walking in to find a steaming cup of tea and a biscuit waiting for him on his favorite table, a warm smile from Anathema the only thing he needs to know that it is, in fact, for him.

Sometimes, on slower days, when she thinks she can get away with it, Anathema sneaks over to his table to chat for a while. She’s a rather odd girl, really, but quite charming and Aziraphale finds that he likes her very much. She has the uncanny ability to read him and to catch him in a lie— not that he tells lies often, of course. But sometimes when she looks at him, Aziraphale feels like she’s seeing _through_ him, looking at the stories written into the curves of his old bones, the tragedies of his past, and the loneliness of his future. And sometimes, though she’s starting to get the hint, Anathema asks about those stories. _T_ _hat’s_ when Aziraphale lies.

Still, he rather enjoys her company. She makes him laugh and listens to him complain repeatedly about his boss at the university— if Gabriel could even be called that since Aziraphale had retired from professorship some years ago. Anathema once offered to hex Gabriel for him and Aziraphale had taken perhaps a second too long before declining her offer and Anathema seemed to never want to let it go. Aziraphale pretends to be put out by it but even he can’t deny the curl of his lips into a smile that he tries to hide behind his teacup.

It had been Aziraphale’s favorite café before he had met Anathema, but meeting her had solidified its spot on the top of his list. He didn’t even consider other cafes anymore, this was the only place he ever wanted to be when he needed a break. On days where Anathema was free enough to join him, it was loud and boisterous but joyous, too. On days she wasn’t in or was simply too busy, it was quiet and cozy, giving him a chance to get some uninterrupted work done. 

But no matter the day, it was peaceful, a place Aziraphale could feel comfortable and could recharge. That was a bonus that he hadn’t expected from a public place like this.

He rather enjoyed the peace, too. Until, of course, something came along to disrupt it. 

There was suddenly the distinct scraping of metal chair legs against the tiled floor, shattering the bubble Aziraphale had managed to absorb himself into for the last few hours, only glancing up occasionally to get a refill on his tea. 

As if the noise hadn’t been irritating enough, someone plopped down across from Aziraphale, shoving his textbooks out of the way to make room for their coffee mug. Aziraphale nearly groaned aloud before the man even spoke. “Still haven’t discovered a computer, I see.”

“I wish you’d discover the _door,_ ” Aziraphale said pointedly, glancing up at the man across the table from him. “Or at the very least, some manners.”

The man laughs, tipping his head back and exposing the long column of his throat. “Now, where would the fun be in that?”

“I assure you,” Aziraphale huffs, reaching out to gather up his scattered textbooks. “ _I_ would find it _quite_ enjoyable. Especially the part where you don’t come back.”

“Someone’s in a mood today.” The man teases, completely undeterred by Aziraphale’s scathing remarks. He lifts his cup of coffee to his lips and takes a long sip. The cup, combined with the ridiculous sunglasses that the man never seems to take off, obscures the majority of his face for a brief moment, but his delight at Aziraphale’s attitude is still entirely too apparent and it only serves to irritate Aziraphale further. “Favorite pen run out of ink?”

“Good lord, Crowley.” Aziraphale admonishes. “Don’t you have something better to do? Some uselessly trashy article to write?”

The man, Crowley, reclines further back in his chair, slinging an arm across the back of it and stretching his long legs out underneath the table, his foot bumping Aziraphale’s more than once in his futile pursuit of comfort. The fact was that Anthony J. Crowley, leading writer at one of the hottest “news” websites in Europe, was simply too long. There was too much of him. No matter how he positioned himself, an elbow or a knee would be jutting out at some weird, impossible angle. In the years that Aziraphale had known him, throughout multiple professional events they’d both attended, he had never once seen Crowley in a position that looked even remotely _comfortable_. Some of them didn’t even look _real_.

“As a matter of fact,” Crowley responds, setting his mug back on the table carelessly, some of the coffee nearly splashing onto Aziraphale’s books. “I do have an article to write, that’s why I’m here. I’m meeting someone for an interview.”

“Oh, an _interview_.” Aziraphale parrots back at him, snatching his books out of Crowley’s reach. “Aren’t you quite important?”

“I am, thanks for noticing.” Crowley shoots back immediately.

And this is the very reason Crowley irritates Aziraphale so much. He’s wasting his talents, creating and publishing articles that are wildly below him. He has deep insights and thoughts that are actually worth investigating. And instead, he lets it all fester on useless clickbait articles, writing drivel that the masses consume instead of something that could change the world. He’s infuriating to Aziraphale because they could— and should— be equals, writing papers that challenge each other, bring each other up to higher levels. 

It had started long before they’d met when Aziraphale had been unlucky enough to click on one of Crowley’s articles that had been advertised to him while he was skimming the internet— yes, he knew how to use a computer, thank you very much, _Crowley_. It wasn’t that Crowley wasn’t a skilled writer, but it was more the fact that his articles were, well, drivel. The topics he chose to write about were vapid and pointless, with no real meaning to them. They were “cool” and “trendy”, sure, but they lacked integrity, empathy, research. They were the kind of articles that Aziraphale could write in an afternoon if he ever decided to simply throw his dignity away.

Crowley’s articles were meant to get readers to the website and to draw them in. And, unfortunately, they were successful. Crowley was practically a household name at this point, his articles quoted by everyone— teenage girls and old ladies alike. It was disgusting and despicable and Aziraphale— someone who wrote real and legitimate articles for a living— couldn’t possibly stand for it. Especially because Crowley _was_ a talented writer. Every once in awhile, there’d be a topic of his articles that really let his skills shine and he was masterful, the way he wove words together to paint a picture, the way he broke things down. He was incredibly skilled as a writer, he just never showcased his abilities the way he should or with worthwhile topics.

Aziraphale researched his articles. He wrote based solely on facts. His articles, though few and far between certainly, were _important_ and _hard-hitting_ , they were the kind of things that _needed_ to be told and they were, quite often, hard for people to swallow. But that’s how the truth works! Aziraphale spends hours fact-checking every single thing he puts in his articles, and this is on top of the hours he puts into his literary analyses for Gabriel. Aziraphale didn’t publish things that weren’t _immaculate_ and he’d been fairly certain that the word ‘immaculate’ wasn’t even in Crowley’s vocabulary.

And then he’d _met_ Crowley and the man had been— well, he’d been brilliant, really. He was witty and quick on his feet, very observant even if he didn’t often put those observations into words. He was charming, too, and able to slide his way into any conversation with ease. He was the kind of person that could probably be writing _anything_ and he chose to write clickbait articles that didn’t, in all actuality, contribute anything to society. And the sheer fact that he could be doing more, that he was so brilliant and bright, only served to grate further on Aziraphale’s nerves. And it wasn’t like he had any right to go around policing other people’s lives or insisting that they meet their full potential but there was just _something_ about Crowley. 

Aziraphale takes a steadying breath, in through his nose and out slowly through his mouth. “I don’t suppose you could possibly wait at another table for your subject then?”

Crowley makes a show of considering this, even though Aziraphale knows what his answer is going to be. Sure enough, a sharp grin comes a moment later. “Nah.”

“Should I ask what this interview is about?” Aziraphale presses on, rolling his eyes. “Or will it lower my intelligence too much?”

“Oh, I hardly think that’s possible.” Crowley drawls, leaning forward and propping an elbow on the table, cupping his chin in his hand. He tilts his head down so that he can peer at Aziraphale over the top of his stupid sunglasses. “I mean, all you ever do is read those boring articles, right? I’m sure nothing _I_ say could ever be important enough to lower your intelligence.”

Crowley’s eyes have always been the one thing about him that Aziraphale finds completely fascinating. His personality is frustrating and grating, his job is, well, a waste of talent and effort. But his eyes? They’re stunning. They’re a honey brown so light that they nearly look gold with a few dark flecks throughout, giving them depth. They almost look fake— and Aziraphale would think that they _were_ contacts or something if Crowley didn’t wear those sunglasses all the time. Aziraphale had asked him about it, once, when they’d first met, and Crowley had explained that the color of his eyes made them highly sensitive to light so he needed the sunglasses at all times.

And even Crowley, as dramatic as he tended to be, wasn’t dramatic enough to wear sunglasses constantly just for the aesthetic of contacts.

Aziraphale huffs and scoots back in his chair, squaring his shoulders up against Crowley, hands curling protectively around the books in his lap. “Well, if it’s not important, I see no point in asking then.”

That startles a laugh out of Crowley who tilts his head back to once again hide his eyes from Aziraphale. “And what have you got here? Should I ask or will I be bored to sleep before you even get through the first sentence?”

“Yes, I fear it may be too much for your mind to handle. Wouldn’t want to overwhelm you with a word more than four letters long.” Aziraphale almost shimmies in his seat, proud of his scathing comeback.

“Oh angel,” Crowley looks more impressed than anything else and Aziraphale can feel the wind being taken right out of his sails. “You wound me.”

“I do wish you’d stop calling me that.” Aziraphale murmurs, dejected. Crowley has a way of doing that— of taking a triumphant moment and completely ruining it for Aziraphale with just a few words.

But if there’s one thing he’s learned about Crowley, it’s that the man is a thorn in the side. No, he’s like a _burr_. Once he decides to stick to Aziraphale, there doesn’t seem to be anything Aziraphale can do to get him to leave. And, unfortunately for Aziraphale, irritating him seems to be Crowley’s favorite pastime. It’s certainly his specialty. He’d been good at it from the moment they met and has spent the last four years perfecting his craft. It’s near-perfect at this point, Aziraphale would venture, but he’s certain that Crowley will always see room for improvement and a reason to keep practicing.

“You said you don’t like it when people call you by your name.” Crowley points out, a finger held aloft from his coffee cup as if pointing to some specific point in history.

“I said I didn’t like being recognized by my name.” Aziraphale corrects automatically, sinking into a well-worn argument between the two of them.

In fact, what he had said when they’d first met was that he didn’t like when people saw the name on his debit card and immediately recognized him and began asking him questions about his work. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his articles— he absolutely did; he wouldn’t give them up for anything— but rather that sometimes he wanted a break from them. He’d said that he occasionally wished he’d published under a pseudonym so that he had the availability to leave discussions of work behind if he so chose. 

What he did _not_ say was that he didn’t like people using his name. He certainly never said anything that would give Crowley any indication or reason for using a— a _nickname_. But Crowley, under Aziraphale’s skin from the moment they’d met, had somehow gleaned that piece of information and that piece of information _only_ out of their conversation, clinging to it like a lifeline. By the end of their first night at the literary conference where they’d met, Crowley was calling him angel as often as he could possibly slip it into a conversation.

(" _Y’know, I googled it— oh.” Crowley grinned sharply down at him from where he sat, one seat between the two of them for propriety’s sake. Aziraphale had shown up to the next presentation nearly an hour early in order to try and get a break from Crowley but it hadn’t worked. “Have you heard of google? It’s this thing on the computer—”_

_“I know what google is.” Aziraphale snapped back, flipping his pamphlet open pointedly._

_It did nothing to deter Crowley. “Right, well, I googled your name.” Aziraphale took a slow inhale through his nose, ready for the turn this conversation usually took. He was just about prepared for it when Crowley spoke again and veered the conversation completely off the normal track. “Did y’know that your name means ‘Angel’ in some stuffy, boring ancient language?”_

_“Come again?” Aziraphale was so stunned by the turn of events that he actually shifted his whole body in his chair to be able to better see Crowley._

_“Your name,” Crowley repeated slowly. He was purposely not looking at Aziraphale, the black ovals of his glasses directed towards the empty podium. “It means ‘Angel’.”)_

Somehow, over the next few years, the name had stuck. Much like Crowley, it dug its claws in and didn’t let go, holding on tight no matter how stubbornly Aziraphale tried to shake it away. And now, nearly four years after that night, Crowley used the name almost as an afterthought. More often than not, Aziraphale didn’t even realize that Crowley had used the nickname until he’d gotten home later in the day.

They lapsed into silence, the familiar argument settling around them with the weight of a comfortable blanket. They’d had it numerous times over the years they’d known each other but it had come with less and less bite every time. It wasn’t that it had stopped irritating Aziraphale, but rather that it just became worn smooth with time. It was an argument that Aziraphale knew he’d never win, so he stopped putting in his full effort whenever it came up. But it annoyed him enough for Crowley to cling tightly to it, to draw it forth at any sign of weakness on Aziraphale’s part. It wasn’t a fatal blow, not anymore, but it was a constant small annoyance and truthfully, that seemed to be more Crowley’s brand than anything else. 

Crowley never made grand gestures of annoyance— okay, not _never_ but very, very rarely. Instead, he insisted on ruining Aziraphale’s days one small thing at a time. Something like walking through the door first and refusing to hold it open for Aziraphale, or not warning Aziraphale before he was about to step in a puddle. Sometimes he went out of his way to interrupt Aziraphale in the middle of a sentence with a question that they both knew he already knew the answer to. _That_ was Crowley’s brand— small things that built up over time.

But Aziraphale was starting to get a full picture of Crowley, the more time passed. They weren’t together often, but they were thrust into the same vicinity of each other enough for Aziraphale to start to really get a feel for who he was dealing with. For all Crowley was jumbled limbs and sharp edges, Aziraphale was beginning to think that there was a soft interior that he was protecting.

It was in the little, unconscious things that Crowley didn’t realize he was doing— or perhaps didn’t realize that Aziraphale was watching. It was things like when Crowley would take a sip of his coffee and set the cup back down with a little too much force, the liquid sloshing up towards the rim of the cup. In truth, Aziraphale knew that his textbooks weren’t in any _real_ danger, that Crowley would never actually spill anything on them. If he did, he’d feel utterly terrible. Crowley was constantly _annoying_ Aziraphale, but he was never _harming_ him, or anything around him. And maybe that was something about him that annoyed Aziraphale, too— the fact that he was so determined to keep his kindness and compassion hidden behind a disinterested and occasionally rude exterior. Aziraphale would never understand why Crowley tried so hard to appear as if he didn’t care when in fact it was quite obvious that he _did_. 

Aziraphale had seen Crowley in passing helping a mother lift her stroller up onto the curb, or catching a can toppling out of a stranger’s grocery bag. He’d seen Crowley hold the door open for an elderly lady and pay for the drink of the person behind him. Crowley _did_ do nice things and for some reason that Aziraphale could not possibly fathom, he felt the need to cancel those things out, to go out of his way to add some negativity back into the world so that his slate ended up clean and neutral. It didn’t make sense to Aziraphale and Aziraphale didn’t like things that didn’t make sense. He was a scholar, he followed logic. He liked things that had clear beginnings, clear ends, and a very obvious path between the two. But there was nothing clear about Crowley or his intentions, and he certainly kept the contents of his heart shrouded behind this aloof exterior. He was like a puzzle that Aziraphale couldn’t quite put together, but for some reason, he kept trying. He kept paying attention and cataloging facts about Crowley to add to this mental mosaic he was creating.

It didn’t look like much yet, but Aziraphale figured that someday in the future it would make a beautiful picture. 

With a sigh, Aziraphale loosened his grip on his books and leaned his back against the chair. He was still sitting primly, completely upright— the exact opposite of Crowley— but his posture was more relaxed than it had been a moment before. He could feel Crowley’s eyes tracking his movements, noticing the change. That was the thing about Crowley, he noticed _everything_. Aziraphale could always feel the attentiveness of his gaze, the weight of his stare as he tracked movements and noticed facial expressions. He knew Crowley was doing much the same as he was— creating a catalog of information in his mind. Sometimes Aziraphale wondered what that mosaic looked like. 

“I apologize,” Aziraphale said after a moment, his gaze focused down on his teacup instead of across the table at Crowley. He took in another breath and when he exhaled it, he did his best to exhale all of the tension from his shoulders, too. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh to you just because I disagree with your career choice.”

“Is that all you disagree with?” Crowley grinned back at him, “And here I thought I was doing a better job than that.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale warned, finally glancing up at him.

Crowley’s grin was friendly enough, with no sharpness around the edges as he gazed back at Aziraphale. “S’alright, angel. I’ve certainly heard worse.”

“I’m sure you have.” Aziraphale agreed, his tone hushed. “But that doesn’t forgive my behavior.”

At that, Crowley just shrugs. 

And this was just like them, too. Aziraphale knew that Crowley thought him to be uptight and judgmental. Crowley wasn’t far off, truly, but that was just how Aziraphale was comfortable. He knew that Crowley didn’t often think of him particularly favorably, the same way Aziraphale got a sour taste on his tongue whenever he heard Crowley’s name dropped between strangers out and about town. They weren’t friends, not by any stretch, and they weren’t going to stop bickering with each other any time soon, but they were both decent enough people and Aziraphale saw no reason to be outright nasty to Crowley— not in a way that actually mattered. He did like sleeping at night and found that hard to do when he’d spent his day being cruelly unfair to someone, even if that someone was Crowley. And even if Crowley was doing a whole list of infuriating things, which he often was. 

Aziraphale finally lifts his cup to his lips and takes a sip, closing his eyes at the flavor of it. The staff at this café— Anathema especially— had a knack for refilling his tea at the perfect moments to keep it precisely the way he liked. By the time he got around to drinking it, it was always exactly the right temperature— not too hot, not too cold. He could feel the weight of Crowley’s gaze on him still as he set the cup back down, letting out a sigh.

The silence between them isn’t _uncomfortable_ , but Aziraphale wouldn’t go so far as to call it _comfortable_ , either. It feels like something _should_ be said, but he wasn’t sure exactly what. He surveyed Crowley sitting across the table from him, scanned the lines of his shoulders, the angle of his jaw, the curls of his shoulder-length hair. Crowley appeared equally as uncertain about the silence, shifting in his seat minutely every few moments as if the silence were something he could shake off with enough jittery movements.

“This for Gabriel?” Crowley finally asked after a moment, gesturing vaguely to the table in front of them and all the books scattered there. “Haven’t told that tosser to fuck off yet?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever tell him to— _well_.” Aziraphale coughs once and Crowley’s grin is back, amused. That’s another interesting thing about Crowley— or perhaps this was about his acquaintanceship with Crowley. They were able to slip easily into a conversation of any topic, able to easily dive immediately past small talk and straight into deeper topics that most people shied away from. It should probably unnerve Aziraphale but he refuses to examine it too closely because he finds he likes Crowley’s insight on things and that he’s quite a formidable debate opponent. “But no, I haven’t ended my arrangement with him yet. I do enjoy the work, Crowley, even if I don’t enjoy Gabriel as much.”

“What’s not to enjoy?” Crowley teases. He’d only met Gabriel once, at one of the literary conferences they had both attended. It had been more than enough to burn a lasting impression of Gabriel into his mind. “The fake smile really does it, you know? Very warm and welcoming and not at all creepy.”

Despite himself, Aziraphale snorts a quiet laugh under his breath, pressing his mouth into a tight line to try and stop it. It’s not proper manners to make fun of his boss, no matter how much he absolutely wants to. “Yes, well, after this long I’ve learned how to manage him.”

Crowley rolls his eyes and Aziraphale glances away as he feels his smile growing.

There are very few people Aziraphale can talk to freely about his work— not because he’s bound by any sort of rules but because they don’t understand. He doesn’t have many friends who are also writers, who know about the deadlines, the stages of writing, the arduous process. It would take Aziraphale too long to explain the entire thing and even if he did, he didn’t think the people around him would understand the full extent of whatever he was telling them. It would be a tedious waste of time with not enough people. And then, there are even fewer people who know Gabriel and understand exactly what it is Aziraphale has been dealing with all these years. And even though Crowley had only met Gabriel once, Aziraphale could, and perhaps even _would_ argue that Crowley knew him just as well as Aziraphale did.

That was the thing about Gabriel— he was absolutely superficial in every aspect possible. His personality had hardly changed and certainly hadn’t deepened in the years Aziraphale had been working with him. Everything he said was followed up with one of those false laughs that were too boisterous for something that, truthfully, wasn’t even funny at all. Sometimes he said things that he found to be particularly profound, even though Aziraphale couldn’t possibly fathom why. More often than not, Aziraphale didn’t even reach out to Gabriel for answers to questions he had because he could play the entire conversation through in his head from start to finish— all of their conversations had gone exactly the same over the years, it wasn’t hard to Aziraphale to pick out one of Gabriel’s cookie-cutter responses and play it out in his head.

Crowley opens his mouth to say something, probably something crude about Gabriel— something that Aziraphale would agree with internally, even if he condemned it externally— when the bell above the door to the café jingled. They both instinctively turned towards the sound, just in time to watch a young woman walk in, a bag clutched closely to her chest, the nervousness radiating off of her from across the room while her eyes scan the area.

“Sorry, angel,” Crowley says instead, drawing his long legs back to himself. “That’s my subject. Duty calls. Don’t miss me too much while I’m gone.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says as the man starts to take a step forward. Crowley pauses and glances at him over his shoulder. “Do be gentle with her, won’t you? She looks terrified.”

It’s only a split moment, but Crowley’s expression melts into something gentler. “ ‘course, angel.”

And just like that, he saunters across the shop, greeting the young woman and leading her to a different table on the other side of the room, leaving Aziraphale to sit there, staring at the space he just vacated, replaying the image of his soft expression in his mind and wondering why his heart was beating so quickly.

* * *

The next hour or two went by in a blur. Occasionally Crowley would glance to the side to find Aziraphale’s gaze lingering on him, shooting him an encouraging smile whenever they made eye contact. Once Aziraphale had shot him an approving smile when Crowley had made the young woman across from him laugh, clearly proud of Crowley for making her feel at ease. Crowley tried not to notice the tightness in his chest that came with the sight of his proud smile, forcing himself to focus back on the interview at hand. 

The young woman was a kind, but very quiet girl. Her tweet had recently gone viral on the internet and she was, by all accounts, not at all equipped to handle the results of that. There was more backlash than she could’ve anticipated and even more support than that. People were constantly reaching out to her for advice, to send her encouragement, to ask her for more personal details of the story she had shared. She’d been so overwhelmed by it all that she nearly hadn’t agreed to meet with Crowley at all.

Eventually, she had relented, of course. In truth, Crowley didn’t really care about her story— he didn’t care about _any_ of the stories he wrote— but his boss _did_ care and had been insistent that Crowley make it happen. And so, Crowley had. He had gotten her to agree to meet with him, to share the full story behind her tweets. He had a recorder out on the table, taping their conversation and a notebook open before him, scribbling a few notes here and there in handwriting that was barely even legible. And then, tonight, he’d go home and he’d type it all up and email it off, ready for publishing tomorrow morning.

It would mean that he’d get a late start tomorrow, which was nice. With an article written to be published in the morning, he could get away with swinging into the office late and only picking at his work as the rest of the day went by.

Most of the articles Crowley wrote were simple enough that he could write them in his sleep— or stockpile them. Sometimes he even did. If enough asinine, pointless trends happened at once, he would dedicate an entire day to writing article after article and storing them away, a week’s worth of content written and completed at once. It was always a tedious day when he decided to do this, but it got him nearly a week of vacation, lounging in his chair and lobbing things at Hastur whenever the man turned his back. It might not be the most productive way for him to spend his time, but it was certainly among the most entertaining. Lord knew that Hastur deserved what Crowley gave him and then some. In truth, the man should be grateful that he didn’t get _worse_.

The woman across from Crowley was still going on, off on some side tangent now that Crowley honestly couldn’t track. He’d been engrossed in the interview at the very beginning, interested in getting the information that he needed to get this article done. But then the girl had gotten too comfortable with him and had started veering off on different topics, the interview lasting minute after minute, the clock ticking on what felt like an endless loop, far longer than Crowley had planned on it lasting. It didn’t really matter— he didn’t have anything to get home to.

Crowley, like a few other people he knew, had dedicated his life to his work. He went out one night a week for a few drinks just to avoid staring at the same four walls of his flat but that was the entirety of his personal life.

It had _always_ been the entirety of his personal life, although there had been a time when his career had brought him joy. There had been a time when he _liked_ writing and he cared about the subjects he wrote, a time where he was someone that Aziraphale would’ve actually respected in the literary world. He wondered, sometimes, if Aziraphale would ever hear about that, but he figured that any google search on him now would bury those old articles under piles and piles of his useless writings from his current job, successfully hiding his past. It was all fine and well, really, Crowley wanted to forget the past as much as he possibly could. 

Except when he was with Aziraphale.

For some reason, Aziraphale makes Crowley want to bring up the past. He makes Crowley want to pull up his old articles, the ones he actually put effort into, the ones he’s _proud_ of. Aziraphale makes Crowley want to jump back into the fire. Aziraphale is uptight, judgmental, and far less forgiving than someone would expect from him, and for some reason, he makes Crowley want to relive the worst years of his life, makes him want to crack his heart open and lay the contents bare, awaiting Aziraphale’s judgment.

Crowley absolutely fucking _hates_ it. 

It makes him feel disgusting and weak, it makes him feel like some sort of pushover. There’s nothing about Aziraphale that should make him want these things. The first time they’d met, Aziraphale had spit Crowley’s name out like it tasted terrible on his tongue, his face pinching together in disdain before Crowley had even finished properly introducing himself. It hadn’t surprised Crowley that Aziraphale had heard of him— pretty much everyone had at this point— but it had been a while since anyone had reacted so negatively to his name. It had been even longer since someone had steadfastly refused to let him even _attempt_ to redeem himself. Crowley had no intention of doing that, but Aziraphale hadn’t even left it open as a possibility. He’d passed judgment on Crowley before even meeting him and didn’t seem to be changing his mind anytime soon.

Sure, he seemed like he was softening a little bit in the four years since they’d met, but not significantly. Aziraphale made no bones about how he felt about Crowley’s decision to work as a leading writer for _Hellfire_ and he certainly didn’t try to keep his feelings on Crowley’s articles a secret. They’d exchanged numbers after their third time meeting at a conference and to this day Aziraphale would text Crowley if he read any of Crowley's articles, critiquing it or just flat out tearing it apart. It didn’t bother Crowley— he didn’t have any misguided notions that his work was anything remarkable— but he did find it to be particularly petulant of Aziraphale.

They were both adults who were capable of making their own decisions and yet somehow, for reasons that were beyond Crowley, Aziraphale seemed particularly invested in _his_ choices. Aziraphale seemed to care far more than anybody rightfully should about what Crowley was doing with his life and Crowley, damn everything, cared far more than he rightfully should about what Aziraphale’s opinion of him was.

So he did the only thing he could logically do: he irritated Aziraphale. He went out of his way to do things that he knew Aziraphale was going to hate. If Aziraphale had decided to hate him, well, Crowley was going to earn that hatred, it was the only thing he could do with the jittery feeling that felt like electricity on his skin, it was the only thing he could do to make sense of his emotions when Aziraphale was around.

What else could he do? Saying _I hate that you care so much about my life and I hate even more that it matters to me_ wasn’t really going to cut it.

“Oh,” The girl finally seemed to catch herself, blushing furiously as she glances up at Crowley. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Not at all,” Crowley lies through his teeth, smiling at her. “It’s all quite interesting, actually.”

He hadn’t listened to a word she’d said in at least twenty minutes, his mind veering off the moment he’d gotten that proud smile from Aziraphale. Honestly, did Aziraphale think he was some monster that was going to scare this girl away? Crowley wanted to be offended at the idea. 

“That’s a relief.” The girl nearly sags in her seat, reaching for her coffee for the first time in what has to be at least an hour. She takes a sip and seems to take a moment to bring herself back together. Crowley tries to do the same. There’s something about Aziraphale’s presence that absolutely jumbles him up and he absolutely despises it, more than anything else. “I was so nervous about this interview.”

“Completely normal,” Crowley reassures her, trying to put all of his focus back on the girl in front of him and not wonder about whether Aziraphale is still sitting at that table in the midst of all those stupid textbooks. “Everyone’s nervous for an interview.”

“Yeah?” The girl smiles at him. “I’m not abnormal?”

“Not at all,” Crowley replies evenly. “I’m sure you’ll feel nervous again in the morning when the article posts. Also completely normal.”

“The article is posting _tomorrow_?” She asks, her eyes wide, hand gripping the bag that she never moved out of her lap. Crowley got the impression that she was using it as some sort of shield, even after he’d gotten her to lighten up and laugh a little. “You’re going to write the whole article tonight?”

Crowley tries to smile reassuringly at her. He thinks it probably comes across more tired, but he’ll settle for that. There’s the beginning of a headache starting right between his eyes and at the base of his skull, a dull throbbing that isn’t bad enough to interfere with anything but isn’t mild enough to be ignored, either. “I’m a very fast writer.”

Honestly, Crowley just wants the entire thing to be done. He wanted it to be done at least forty-five minutes ago, after her fourth tangent that didn’t relate to the main story. While the article wasn’t being posted until the morning, Crowley had a deadline for it that was much earlier than that. He had to have it done in time to send it to his boss for approval and then they had to send it to the editor who then had to send it to whoever posted it and whoever made all the pictures go along with it. Crowley didn’t honestly care about who existed past his boss and his editor because he didn’t deal with them directly under any circumstances. He also didn’t really care because he never reread his own articles, once he sent them off to his boss, he was completely done with them. Unless he got an email back insisting he fix a certain part, Crowley never looked at his articles again. Not even when they were posted. 

When he’d agreed to meet her this late in the day, he’d been anticipating a quick half-hour of her flushing out some of the questions that her Twitter thread left unanswered, and then they’d be on their way. He hadn’t intended to be here for hours, hadn’t intended to run into Aziraphale, hadn’t intended for anything that had happened so far today to actually happen.

His headache throbs, spiked by his growing irritation and he thinks that he absolutely needs to get out of this situation before he starts getting nasty. Whenever he gets a bad headache, his mood plummets as his pain spikes and he can’t be held responsible for the things he says and does. (Okay, he can be held responsible, of course, he can be, but he _does_ get especially irritating when he’s like this and it takes all of his conscious efforts to not take it out on other people).

“You must be,” The girls says and she almost sounds impressed. Crowley wants to laugh but he’s not sure if he’s amused or if it’d be one of those dark, self-deprecating laughs because he hadn’t had anything but his writing in his life for years. Of _course,_ he was a fast writer, it was the only thing he _did_ , he was bound to hone his skill eventually. “Did I answer everything you needed?”

“Yes,” Crowley replies evenly, one hand turning into a fist in his lap under his table. Now that the end is in sight, each second is grating on his nerves as it seems to tick by impossibly slowly. “Thank you very much for your time. My boss will send you a link to the article once it’s posted tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll see it all over social media and be tagged in it plenty of times, too, so it’ll be pretty hard to miss.”

The girl takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly, smiling brightly at Crowley. “Thank you, Mr. Crowley. I appreciate you writing this article. I had no idea it would blow up like it did but I know you’ll do a great job telling the rest of it.”

“I think I should be the one thanking you,” Crowley replies, a statement he’s had to make to nearly every subject he’s ever interviewed for an article. It comes easily to him now, even though the words are still completely hollow. “You were very kind to share the rest of the story with me. I will do my best to do it justice.”

In truth, Crowley _hates_ when people thank him. He’s doing his job, that’s it. He’s not writing her article because he’s deeply invested in her story, he’s not doing it because he wants something bigger and better for her. He’s doing it because _Hellfire_ signs his paychecks and they said to write this article. She’s simply thanking him for doing his _job_ and that’s hardly worth it. Half the time he barely even _does_ his job, half-assing his articles and refusing to reread them isn’t really something a top-caliber writer does. And yet, Crowley has somehow built a very successful career on it— he’s built a successful career on something he, objectively, hates.

He _knows_ Aziraphale is right, that his articles are useless drivel. He knows that they’re probably decreasing the IQ of everyone who reads them. Hell. his IQ has certainly dropped a few points since he started writing these articles. But after the disaster his life had become, he needed something easy and guaranteed. He hadn’t expected to be _good_ at it, hadn’t expected to become a household name. He’d just wanted to keep his head low while he tried to get back on his feet and _Hellfire_ had been the only one stupid enough to give him that opportunity. And then he’d struck big, become their best asset, and they’d given him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

And just like that, any dreams he had of getting back to the kind of writing he’d done before, the kind that made him _f_ _eel_ something died.

It tastes bitter on his tongue and the knowledge that Aziraphale would never have compromised his standards for anything makes Crowley’s stomach churn.

Crowley shakes himself out of staring blankly at the table before him, realizing belatedly that the girl had slipped out at some point and taken her leave. Crowley doesn’t have any recollection of saying goodbye to her but he assumes he must have, his brain operating on autopilot. He groans and scrubs his hands across his face, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair for a brief moment to try and pull himself back together, The headache is spreading, behind both of his eyes now, the pressure building inside his head and making it feel like it might explode. He rolls his head on his neck, yanks his sunglasses back down, and finally reaches out for his tape recorder, resolving to just go home, get it done quickly, and drop into a sleep that should hopefully chase the edges of this headache away.

He’s shoved everything in his bag and is standing to sling it over his shoulders when the sigh of Aziraphale catches his eye. He shouldn’t care, he knows it absolutely shouldn’t matter to him in the least that someone is sitting across from Aziraphale, leaning forward as if listening intently to everything Aziraphale says. It should _not_ matter to him that it looks like a— a _date_ for hell’s sake. But the pounding in his head is chasing out all logical thought and his quickly plummeting mood and all of the negative emotions that Aziraphale manages to stir up in him come rushing to a head, spurring him across the café before he even has a chance to think twice about it.

* * *

“You only write for the local paper _occasionally_?” The person— Beelzebub, as they’d introduced themselves when they’d sat down— is saying incredulously to Aziraphale. “I feel like I see your name all over the place.”

“Ah, yes.” Aziraphale smiles sheepishly down at his tea. “You likely do. I write a lot of literary analyses for the University and have had a few studies published under my name, too. I fear it’s a rather common thing for people to recognize me so easily.”

Beelzebub seems to consider this for a moment. “I guess I understand.” They say after a second. “I did recognize you by your name. But how would you feel about writing _more_ for things other than the university?”

Aziraphale pauses, surprised by the question. It was something he had considered, sure. There were only so many pieces of classic literature he could analyze and only so many famous analyses he could refute before it all started to feel exactly the same. And the truth was that Aziraphale had reached that threshold a long time ago. Writing for the paper was something he’d picked up a few years ago in an attempt to get something different into his life, something that still gave him that spark of excitement when it came to writing. He’d thought, on more than one occasion, that he _could_ switch to writing only for the paper. He loved the topics he did get to write about but he always feared that tying himself to a paper or organization permanently would limit the topics he was allowed to write about and that was a compromise he was unwilling to make this late into his life and certainly this late into his career.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve never considered it,” Aziraphale answers honestly after a moment, the words swirling around in his mind as he tries to pick out precisely the right ones. “I do quite enjoy my occasional article for the local paper, but I fear—”

Before Aziraphale has a chance to finish his thought, the chair next to him slides out and a body deposits itself into it. “What d’you fear, angel?”

Luckily, Aziraphale had seen Crowley stalking across the café out of the corner of his eye, so he didn’t startle when Crowley suddenly inserted himself into the conversation. Aziraphale spared a quick look at Crowley and he looked _ragged_ which could only mean that he was about to be at his peak of irritating Aziraphale. Aziraphale had endured it enough times in the past— all of the conferences they had both attended had either bored Crowley beyond redemption or given him a terrible headache that he didn’t seem to be able to shake without a nap. In both cases, Crowley’s level of chaos increased linearly with his levels of discomfort or boredom and so Aziraphale was already certain that he knew what he was in store for.

“Well,” He said, striving for unbothered. “If you hadn't interrupted me, dear, you’d know.”

“I’m sorry,” Beelzebub cuts in from across the table. “But who is this?”

Aziraphale watches as Crowley’s smile grows, sharpens, and turns distinctively dastardly. And even though Aziraphale knows what he’s in store for, he’s entirely unprepared for the words that slip out of Crowley’s mouth next. “Name’s Anthony Crowley, Aziraphale’s husband.”

Aziraphale is eternally grateful that he wasn’t taking a sip of his tea at that exact moment for he would’ve surely choked on it.

“Husband?” Beelzebub repeats, eyebrows raising. 

There are two courses of action that Aziraphale can take and he knows it. The respectable thing to do is to correct Crowley, to insist to Beelzebub that it’s some ridiculous practical joke, or to explain that Crowley seems to make a living out of irritating Aziraphale to the fullest. Beelzebub probably wouldn’t appreciate the joke Crowley was trying to play, but they’d understand nonetheless, most reasonable people would. The second option is to be petty, stubborn, and equally dastardly. There’s a part of Aziraphale that does not tolerate being shown up by Crowley, that doesn’t like letting him have the upper hand or the last word. There’s a part of Aziraphale that wants to throw Crowley off of his game, the same way he’s trying to throw Aziraphale off of his,

He knows he absolutely should not do that. It’s hardly proper and it’s entirely unfair for Beelzebub to get in the crossfires of their petulant relationship.

He does it anyway.

“That’s right.” Aziraphale smiles warmly, reaching out to place a hand on Crowley’s knee under the table and giving it a tight _squeeze_. Crowley stills beside him. “My dear husband. He’s also a writer, though we write… _different_ subject matters. He was just on the other side of the café doing an interview for his most recent article.”

Crowley, who is _always_ moving in some way, is very, very still next to him, his leg like a stone under Aziraphale’s palm. Aziraphale has a moment of feeling incredibly proud of himself for catching Crowley so off guard and returning the favor. 

Beelzebub is glancing between the two of them, eyebrows drawn together. “You don’t seem like a good match.”

“I hardly think you can tell after only a few seconds—” Aziraphale starts to say.

But Crowley finally comes back to life next to him, his grin sliding back onto his face. He looks _elated_ that Aziraphale decided to join him in this lie and it makes Aziraphale’s blood boil. “Opposites attract, isn’t that the saying? I assure you, we’re well fitted for each other.”

“Quite.” Aziraphale agrees as evenly as he possibly can, refusing to move his hand from where it’s placed.

A silence stretches on for a long moment before Beelzebub’s attention zones in on Crowley. “Anthony Crowley, you said? The lead writer for _Hellfire?_ ”

“That’s me.” 

“Very interesting,” Beelzebub replies, a smile tilting up the corner of their lips. Something about it is unnerving and Aziraphale doesn’t like the sight of it at all. Somehow what had been a perfectly normal conversation had gone entirely off the rails and Aziraphale feels like he’s speeding downhill in a car with no brakes. He should’ve known better than to latch himself onto Crowley like this. “Well, I won’t keep you. Thank you for letting me interrupt your research, Aziraphale. And please do consider what we were talking about earlier. Anthony, I’ll be seeing you very soon.”

And then before either of them could reply, Beelzebub was up and out the door, their short stature helping them blend into the crowds on the sidewalks with ease. 

“What the hell was that?” Aziraphale whirls on Crowley immediately, yanking his hand back so fast someone might think he’d been burnt. “What were you _thinking_?”

“What was _I_ thinking?” Crowley fires back, but he looks utterly delighted. “You’re the one who agreed with me! Plus, they were hardly your type.”

“This wasn’t a _date_ , Crowley!” Aziraphale feels dizzy with frustration. He feels jittery and angry but he’s not sure if he’s mad at Crowley or at himself. Likely both. “They wanted to talk to me about my work and to offer me a position writing for them and their website.”

“What website?” Crowley asks like that’s the only part of what just happened that needs to be talked about. He asks it like everything else is inconsequential and they’re just having a normal conversation over a cup of tea like nothing else had happened. Aziraphale considers storming out without even answering.

He doesn’t, but only because he’s fuming too much to gather his things. He's hardly composed and he certainly didn't want to cause a scene by storming out of his favorite café. If for no other reason than the fact that it would get back to Anathema and she'd wheedle the whole story out of him the next time she saw him. “They didn’t get a chance to say before you so _rudely_ interrupted.”

“Whatever, angel.” Crowley waves it off, his other hand cupping the back of his neck and squeezing. A headache, then, Aziraphale knows. And then he hates that he knows. “If you ever see them again you can just tell them that it was just some practical joke.”

“I absolutely cannot!” Aziraphale replies immediately and it becomes apparently clear that he’s madder at himself than he is at Crowley. “How am I supposed to explain why _I_ lied if it was some practical joke that _you_ were playing?”

“I don’t know, angel. Why _did_ you lie?” Crowley bites back and it’s clear that his temper is running thin. 

Aziraphale takes a steadying breath in. He doesn’t feel any better. “Just go home, Crowley. Go write your article and go to bed. I’ll scold you suitably once you no longer have one of those headaches.”

“Care about my well-being, do you?” Crowley teases, but he’s already gathering his bag again.

“No use scolding you when you’re like this. You won’t learn your lesson.” Aziraphale replies, flustered by Crowley’s comment.

“I assure you,” Crowley stands from his chair and slips the strap to his bag over his shoulder. “I won’t learn my lesson when I’m feeling better, either. Have a good night, my dear husband,”

“You are a wicked man!” Aziraphale calls after him, but he gets nothing more than a dismissive wave in response.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They want to offer you a job.” Crowley confirmed. He didn’t like the way his fingers were trembling around the stem of the wine glass. “You said yesterday that they were talking to you about writing for their website.”
> 
> “Yes.” Aziraphale dabbed his napkin gently across his lips, his gaze stern as he looked across the table at Crowley. “But they didn’t tell me that their website was _Hellfire_.” 
> 
> Crowley flinches, properly chastised despite the fact that Aziraphale hadn’t said anything. Not that he needed to, Crowley knew that the issue at hand was entirely his own creation, a monster from his own mind. That didn’t make it any easier to deal with. “That’s my bad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know I'm posting two days early, please don't get used to this treatment haha. This fic updates every WEDNESDAY. But I am having a VERY bad day today and I need some small spot of happiness in it so I'm posting chapter two now instead. The next update won't be until next week on Wednesday and will post every Wednesday after that! This was going to be unbeta'd anyways, but now that it's being posted two days early it is very, definitively unbeta'd. Only about half of it has been read by a set of eyes other than my own.
> 
> I still haven't finalized an outline or a chapter count yet, so that still has room to change but I do think 15 is pretty close to correct so I don't think it'll change much if it does change at all. I will point out if I change it, though.
> 
> Otherwise, please enjoy!

The article is a huge success.

Crowley made it home from the café, downed some Advil and pulled out his laptop, writing the article in a half delirious blur. His head pounded throughout the entire writing process but he didn’t care. Writing these sorts of articles was essentially second nature to him at this point, his fingers flying over the keys of his computer with unattended ease. He couldn’t even say what it was that he was writing, but the words were coming, pouring out of his fingertips in record time. He felt like he had barely even blinked an eye when the final words were staring back at him from the screen. And then, practically the moment he’d written the final line, the article was already off in an email to his boss. It only took about half an hour before Crowley got the all clear email back and he’d dropped down into a deep sleep as quickly as he could after that.

He slept in late the next morning because he could and by the time he’d woken up, two hours after his article had been posted, it had already received _thousands_ of clicks. 

Now, an article of his receiving thousands of clicks in general wasn’t a big deal— in fact, it was so common that Crowley typically didn’t even bother tracking that statistic anymore. But to receive thousands of clicks in two hours was a feat that even he hadn’t managed yet. The best he had done previously was to hit a couple thousand clicks by the end of the day and even that had taken a while to achieve. This article, though, was on a course to exceed his most successful article to date— not even _exceed_ it, but leave it completely in the dust. If things continued the way they were going, there wasn’t even going to be a competition. At this rate, Crowley could retire right here and now, nothing he wrote in the future would likely ever be this popular again.

He had woken up to a text and an email from his boss praising him for the unbridled success of the article so far and telling him that he could come in whenever he wanted. Crowley almost considered insisting on having the entire day off and just lounging in bed for the whole thing, wasting it away like he was doing with all of his potential, but he figured that he spent enough time trapped in these four walls, he didn’t need to spend _more_ time here. So he eventually dragged himself out of bed, through a quick shower, skipping breakfast completely and then to work.

Everyone congratulated him as he walked through the rows of desks to the one that belonged to him— not that there was anything on it to indicate that it was his. It looked exactly the same as it had when he’d been given it a handful of years ago, the only thing he’d added was files on the articles he wrote and the research he did— in the rare case that he even did any research, which was becoming less and less frequent with each new article. There were no personal touches to it whatsoever, not even a cup full of pencils. He had one pen that he lost at least twice a week. He suspected that Hastur stole it from him just to be petty which meant that Crowley always stole a pen from Hastur’s desk until his mysteriously showed up again.

He did his best to thank the people who congratulated him, nodding in what he thought might look at least vaguely appreciative. A few people even went so far as to clap him on the shoulder and Crowley suddenly regretted ever getting out of bed. His desk was the only solace and he nearly sighed in relief as he slipped into his chair and powered on the computer that he never actually used for work.

(He did use it to play solitaire sometimes, though. And on days when Hastur was being a particular git, he would send him somewhere in the vicinity of fifty emails in a row just to make it so Hastur couldn’t get any actual work done. The emails never said anything important, of course, if they ever said anything at all. One time, Crowley had sent him an entire message one letter at a time, his cackling almost loud enough to drown out Hastur’s cursing.)

“Look who it is.” Hastur drawled as Crowley reclined in his chair, “The king himself.”

“You ought to be bowing, then.” Crowley replied evenly, his mood already lifting up again at just the prospect of giving Hastur a hard time. “S’only proper.”

“You think you’re such hot shit.” Hastur growled, spinning in his chair so that he was facing Crowley from across the aisle way that separated them. “Flash bastard, that’s what you are.”

“S’alright to admit you’re jealous, Hastur.” Crowley grins sharply at him. “I mean, what, the best article you’ve ever written hasn’t even come _close_ to mine and here I am, blowing it out of the water today. Hard not to be jealous, I think.”

“Jealous?” Hastur splutters, “I’d never be jealous of— of _you_.”

Crowley’s grin grows wider, as impossible as that had seemed a moment ago. “No?” He mocks, “Never?”

“What is there to even be jealous of?” Hastur challenges, appearing to get his feet under him for a brief moment. 

“Off the top of my head?” Crowley reclines in his chair, kicking one leg up and crossing it over the other knee. “I’m brilliant, obviously. Devilishly handsome, of course. My wit is _sparkling_.”

“You have such a way with words.” Hastur rolls his eyes and attempts to turn back to his desk.

He doesn’t get turned all the way back, though, not without Crowley firing off one last remark. “That’s what they tell me. No wonder my articles are such a hit.”

Crowley doesn’t actually spare any of his attention on whatever Hastur fires back at him, clicking pointedly into his email instead, his grin holding steadfastly to his lips. There’s two emails waiting for him. Well, there’s more than two, but there’s two that he’ll actually open and read. He gets a lot of emails from people who read his articles even though he’s made it abundantly clear that he won’t ever reply to them. Most of them, he thinks, are positive emails but he’s certain there’s a few in there that are scathing— or meant to be scathing, anyways. Usually those are the ones he finds the most hilarious if he ever bothers to even open them at all.

(One woman had called him a _heathen_ and outlined, in great detail, all the reasons Crowley was bound for Hell. It had tickled Crowley to no end and he had even considered, at one point, printing out the list and hanging it on his wall so that he could look at it whenever he was feeling down.)

The first email that he opens is addressed to the entire company: **Welcome to our newest team member: Beelzebub Prince.** Crowley scans the email, surprised to find that his boss, Ligur, is stepping down and some new person is taking over. Crowley isn’t sure whether he should be bothered or not that he had to find this information out at the same time as the rest of the company. One one hand, he’s the only one who talks to Ligur on a daily basis because he’s the only one who posts daily articles. On the other hand, he certainly wouldn’t call him and Ligur close by any extent of the imagination and he was certain that he hadn’t once, ever, in all the years he’d been here, asked Ligur anything personal. 

In the end, he settled on indifference. As long as this new boss got along with him the way Ligur did and replied to his emails in a timely manner, Crowley figured it didn’t matter. He’d continue not getting to know them personally, producing his low quality articles and interacting with the rest of the staff as little as possible. As long as his new boss approved his articles, Crowley figured nothing would change for him at all and he was perfectly discontent with that fact. But he was perfectly fine to _stay_ discontent because even though he hated everything he had become and damn near every aspect of this job (he loved irritating Hastur, that was easily the only good thing this job had afforded him), he hated change even more. He’d resigned himself to his lot in life a long time ago and didn’t see any point in changing it now.

The second email was addressed to only him, from Ligur, asking Crowley to come to his office as soon as he gets in for the day. Crowley sighs and pushes up from his chair, _accidentally_ walking a little too close to Hastur’s desk as he goes, bumping it with his hip and spilling some of Hastur’s coffee on the page he’d been writing on. Crowley grinned to himself the rest of the walk to Ligur’s office, Hastur’s curses echoing behind him, music to his ears.

The door to Ligur’s office is propped open so Crowley saunters in without even bothering to knock. He stumbles to a stop inside the office when he finds someone else sitting next to Ligur behind his desk, the two of them turned towards each other and clearly in the middle of some conversation. It’s not the fact that someone else is in Ligur’s office that’s of any interest to Crowley— presumably the second person in the office is the new boss— but _who_ is in the office is of great interest to Crowley. He recognizes them immediately, even though he’d never gotten their name yesterday. He knew it now, though— Beelzebub Prince. Their short stature and mop of dark hair was distinctive enough, even without having to hear them speak.

“So we meet again.” Beelzebub says, an unreadable expression crossing their face. It’s similar to the one Crowley had seen yesterday when Beelzebub had identified him and his position. “Mr. Crowley.”

“Fancy seeing you here.” Crowley manages to say, almost sounding nonchalant. It’s quite the feat considering he currently feels like the blood in his veins is turning to ice. Briefly he considers playing dumb if the subject of their conversation from yesterday comes up, but Crowley figures that would only put him further underwater. It’s appealing, though, so very appealing.

“You’ve met?” Ligur asks and Crowley wants to turn on his heel and stalk out. Perhaps running away from the conversation entirely would be the better solution. Of all the things Ligur could’ve asked, that’s perhaps the last thing Crowley wanted him to pick. Because that question would inevitably lead to—

“Met him last night.” Beelzebub answers and Crowley sends up a silent prayer that they leave it at that. Of course, they don’t. “I was talking to his husband when he dropped in.”

The silence that follows the words is nothing short of deafening.

Crowley spares a moment to curse God and the way She never listens to any of his fucking requests. Is it honestly so hard for Her to grant him one— _one_ single request? It’s not like he’s asked for many things in his life! He isn’t sure what he ever did to piss Her off but it’s clearly something— something bad enough to grant him some sort of eternal damnation and nothing even close to resembling forgiveness. At this point, Crowley isn’t sure there’s anything he can do to get back in Her good graces— She appears to be far less understanding than people give her credit for. 

Finally the silence seems to grate on everyone’s nerves for long enough and Ligur manages to pick his jaw up off the ground for long enough to ask. “Husband? Crowley has a _husband_?”

“You sound surprised,” Beelzebub remarks, an eyebrow quirked as they glance over at Ligur.

Ligur turns wide eyes to them. “Have you met the guy? Flash bastard, doesn’t have any regard for anyone other than himself. Can't imagine him loving someone.”

“Fuck off” Crowley remarks but it’s at least mostly good natured. “Just because I don’t talk to you about my personal life doesn’t mean I don’t have one.”

“No,” Ligur agrees mildly. “But the fact that you don’t have one means that you don’t have one.”

“Clever.” Crowley rolls his eyes. He knows they can’t see it through his sunglasses but he likes to think that they know he’s doing it anyways. “Come up with that one all by yourself, did you?”

“Spent all day thinking about it.” Ligur replies, tilting their chair back and grinning at Crowley. 

“That,” Crowley can’t stop a genuine grin from curling his lips, the fear of the situation disappearing for just a fleeting moment. “Is perhaps the saddest thing you’ve ever said. Pay you the big bucks for that, do they?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Ligur laughs and Crowley can’t help but laugh with him.

Beelzebub, at least, seems entertained by the exchange which is the most Crowley can ask for. For now, they have stayed superficial enough that Crowley can deal with it— they’re in a territory he feels like he can navigate. At this point, he can’t very well come out and say that it's a lie, can’t admit that he made it up just to rile Aziraphale up. Beelzebub is his new _boss_ and their opinion, unfortunately, matters. Crowley doesn’t want it to, but he can’t deny that it does. He can’t very well start off on the wrong foot with his new boss by admitting to lying.

If Beelzebub wants to also think of him as a selfish flash bastard, that’s fine. Crowley won’t lose any sleep at night over that. But he needs to at least be perceived as _honest_. Even if there’s no genuine integrity in his writing, he’s still a writer and he still needs to be believed. It’s the basis of any journalist— the honesty that can be trusted above all else. It’s stupid, he knows, and he’s certain that Beelzebub wouldn’t just do something ridiculous like fire him on the spot if they found out that he was lying but Crowley really isn’t intending to find out. There’s something to be said about starting out on the right foot with his new boss. So he aims for superficial, just grazing the surface of the topic before veering away completely. He can do this.

He’s been at the center of enough social circles, been stopped on the street enough times by complete strangers. Crowley knows how to dip just his toes into a conversation, how to stay there for _just_ long enough to be polite and then change the subject or leave entirely. He can and will do this and then he’ll fuck off for the rest of the day. This single meeting alone is proving to be more effort than he had intended to put in for the entire day.

“I’ve just never found you to be good enough company.” Crowley remarks dryly, “No reason to include you into my personal life.”

Ligur barks out a laugh at that, too, and it’s suddenly turned into something that’s more joking than anything else. Crowley can work with that, he can make a few more shallow remarks and then switch the topic to something else. He can get through this, he tells himself every time there is a pause. All he has to do is keep the conversation light and steer it away at the first possible opportunity that won’t make it seem suspicious. He repeats the plan in his head over and over, forcing his shoulders to relax, preventing his knee from jumping anxiously. 

It almost seems like a foolproof plan. Almost, because it probably _would_ be a foolproof plan except that Crowley is Crowley and God definitely still hates him. If there was any doubt about that, She was determined to clear it up. There wasn’t any doubt, but Crowley knew She liked to remind him where he stood from time to time, just to be certain that he never started to get a sense of security from Her. 

“Tell me about him, then.” Ligur challenges and Crowley wants to just melt into a puddle on the floor, seeping into the cracks of the wood and ceasing to exist entirely. “Mister Perfect.”

_Fuck_ . Crowley can see he’s not about to get out of this easily— fuck, fuck, _fuck,_ so much for his plan— but the truth is that he doesn’t know Aziraphale all that well. He’s picked up some information on him, made some observations as to his character, sure, but that’s not the kind of thing a _husband_ would know. A husband would talk about his quirks, would share some fond memories of them together. A husband would gush about him, regaling them with a story of how the two of them had met and how it had been love at first sight. 

It hadn’t been love at first sight, though. Not even a little bit. It might’ve been _interest_ at first sight— Aziraphale was unfairly beautiful, okay? Crowley hated it— but it wasn’t love. And then they’d spoken to each other and that interest had taken a nosedive right into the ground, leaving nothing behind except mutual disrespect and some gaping hole that seemed to want to be filled but neither of them could ever figure out what it wanted to be filled _with_. At least, he couldn’t. He couldn’t speak for Aziraphale which was the entire problem. His stomach plummets to his feet as his mind races through every interaction they’ve had, scouring it for something— anything— that he could use to make this seem legitimate. 

Crowley can’t let the silence stretch on too long, though, because that’s also incriminating. God damn, everything he does is one step away from blowing his secret, apparently. Crowley takes in a deep breath and dives into the info he _does_ know about Aziraphale and he hopes that it’s enough to sate everyone. After all, they didn’t call him in here to talk about his love life so they can’t be intending to spend _too_ much time on this topic. If he can just hit enough points to make it sound real, they might let it go and move to whatever topic they actually called him in here for. 

“Well, he’s also a writer, though he leans more towards literary analysis and the occasional article for the local paper. He’s a bit uptight, honestly, but if you strike his mood just right, you can get him laughing. It’s rare but he throws his head back when he laughs and his eyes flutter closed. It’s—“ Crowley pauses, sucks in a breath, presses his palms against his thighs to try and ground his mind and pull his thoughts back together. “He’s not much of a social person, really. It’s lucky that he doesn’t live at a library or he wouldn’t let anyone else rent out any of the books. He wouldn’t even let them _touch_ the books, honestly. You should see the look he gives me if I ever reach for one of his books. He can be rather scary when he’s angry but he’s genuinely pretty nice underneath it all.” Crowley finishes in essentially one breath, hoping that it sounds composed.

There’s another one of those long silences that Crowley thinks might genuinely suffocate him to death with the sheer weight they carry and then Ligur snorts and says, “He can’t be real.”

“Why not?” Crowley challenges immediately and then winces at how offended it sounds. 

“A bloke like that’d never put up with _you_.” Ligur gestures with one hand vaguely to the entirety of Crowley. He feels more indignant than he had just a moment ago. He can’t say why, exactly, but it rubs him the wrong way and he feels his mood souring. “You sound like complete opposites.”

“Opposites attract, isn’t that what you said, Anthony?” Beelzebub cuts in smoothly and both Crowley and Ligur startle, seeming to have forgotten that they were even there and witnessing this entire exchange. 

“Crowley,” Crowley corrects automatically and Beelzebub inclines their head in recognition of it. He pushes on, wondering why he feels like he’s drowning. “That’s right— opposites. Attract. S’as they say. Y’know.”

In his lifetime, Crowley has ended up in many situations that did not, in any way, go as he anticipated them to go. It was one of those inevitable truths of life— things were bound to go off the rails sometimes, no matter how hard he fought against it. And he did fight against it, as much as he reasonably could. Never in his life, though, had he been in a situation that was both so surprising and so painfully _awkward_ . This conversation wasn’t just derailed, it was plummeting off a cliff so steep that Crowley couldn’t even see the bottom. He was nearly certain he’d still be cringing about this a _month_ from now, flinching whenever he saw Beelzebub. He was going to have to start working remotely if this didn’t get under control, just to avoid the inevitable desire of throwing himself out a window every time he saw Beelzebub or someone mentioned his husband. 

“I’ll admit,” Ligur places his hands on the desk between them. “I didn’t believe Beelzebub when they said they’d met your husband, but I appear to be wrong.” 

“Yeah, well,” Crowley sees his opportunity, his chance to change the subject and get his feet back on solid ground. He seizes it with both hands like the lifeline it is, holding on for dear life. “Private person, me.” Ligur laughs knowingly at that. “But I doubt Aziraphale’s the reason you called me in here.”

Using Aziraphale’s name is like branding Crowley’s tongue. It takes all his self control not to wince as he says it— as he continues to lie about their status. He thinks Aziraphale must be able to feel it, his ears burning, his mood plummeting to the ground. Aziraphale had always had a weird sense for Crowley and he knew, deep down inside, that Aziraphale could just _feel_ his name being slandered like this. The thought was almost enough to make Crowley smile. 

Maybe sometime he’d tell Aziraphale about this, about the ridiculous coincidence, about how Aziraphale had saved his ass without even knowing it. It would piss Aziraphale off to no end, Crowley was certain. His cheeks would turn that ridiculous shade of red, puffing out as Aziraphale tried to think of some string of words that could in any way offend Crowley. It wouldn’t work, nothing Aziraphale said ever offended Crowley. The more Aziraphale insulted Crowley, the more he bit back, the greater amusement Crowley found in the entire thing.

That was half the reason he loved riling Aziraphale up so much. He loved watching that stuffy, uptight exterior deteriorate as Aziraphale got pettier and pettier. He loved watching the way Aziraphale’s spine would stiffen with indignation, the way his blue eyes would sparkle with the challenge. And then, when Aziraphale had dished it as good as he took it, when he had drawn out all of the ugliest words of his heart, only for every single one of them to miss its intended target, Crowley loved watching him deflate. It was like a game.

It was also good for Aziraphale, although neither of them would ever put that into words. But Crowley knew the stress he was under with his boss Gabriel and his demanding publishing schedule, he knew the tension, the disdain that Aziraphale carried around deep inside of him. He knew that it would fester, that it would churn and sour until it ate Aziraphale away from the inside out. He’d been in that state— that unstable emotional turmoil swelling around inside of him, cresting and crashing into him, dragging him down— when Crowley had met him. That had been obvious in his first words, in the venom that he injected into a stranger that he didn’t know.

And he _had_ injected that venom into Crowley— he had torn him apart, shredded him all the way down to the base and then refused to build him back up again. He had been as ruthless as any of the emails Crowley had received from people who didn’t like his work. It was fine, Crowley could handle it— he’d been handling it for years— but it had come from a source that he hadn’t expected. It wasn’t often that other writers looked down so strongly on their colleagues, no matter the subjects said colleagues chose to lend their talents to. 

But that hadn’t been the only thing to surprise Crowley. The other thing— perhaps the more important thing— was the way Aziraphale seemed to deflate after. It was like all this pent up aggression had found its release and he was lighter, more relaxed. Crowley could practically see the weight that had been lifted off of Aziraphale’s shoulders in that moment, see the way he seemed to sag with the relief of it. 

It was this exact reason that Crowley didn’t mind when Aziraphale snipped at him, when he used his harsh words, when he took personal digs directly at Crowley’s character. He didn’t mind because he knew it wasn’t personal. Er, well, it wasn’t _entirely_ personal, anyways. There was some truth to Aziraphale’s words, but the conviction behind them, the way he spit them off of his tongue like they tasted bad, that was coming from somewhere else, spurred on by the different aspects of Aziraphale’s life. 

“You think you’re so important—” Ligur starts and Crowley realizes that he zoned out so completely, he has no idea how much time passed in silence. He hopes it’s not too long as he tries to shake his mind fully back to reality and remember what it even was that he’d said last.

Something about Aziraphale, he knows because the name is still tingling on his tongue, the distinct taste of bitterness in his mouth. 

“As a matter of fact,” Crowley interrupts Ligur’s sentence as his mind slowly whirls back to life. “I _know_ I’m important.”

“Actually,” Beelzebub cuts in fluidly, giving each of them a sharp look to stop them from driving off on some side tangent yet again. Crowley settles into his natural smirk, shifting his attention to Beelzebub and discreetly holding his breath as he waits for what he hopes to be is a distraction. “Aziraphale _is_ the reason I wanted to talk to you. You see—“

* * *

“They said _what_?”

It had taken considerable effort and a great many phone calls to get Aziraphale to agree to have dinner with him. When Aziraphale had threatened to hang up on him for the third time, Crowley had sworn he would find out where Aziraphale lived and show up on his doorstep, refusing to leave until Aziraphale had heard him out. Aziraphale had hung up anyway. But then he’d called back a few minutes later with the name of a restaurant and a time to meet. 

It hadn’t given Crowley much time, honestly, and he wasn’t entirely sure that was on accident. Somewhere in the middle of the second phone call, Crowley was certain he’d pleaded with Aziraphale, insisting that he’d be off in _just a few hours_ and that he could go wherever, do whatever at that point, all Aziraphale had to do was _listen_ to him. So when Aziraphale had called back with reservations set for exactly two hours ahead, Crowley knew that it had been on purpose.

He didn’t have the right to complain, though, not with the fact that their meeting was specifically so Crowley could ask a huge— unreasonably huge— favor of Aziraphale. So he’d promised to be there, and he’d showed up with exactly two minutes to spare. He’d stumbled through the door to find Aziraphale already waiting at their table, napkin spread neatly in his lap and hands folded primly on top of it. He’d rushed through the busy restaurant and taken a seat at exactly the time he’d promised to be there.

Their conversation had started off casual, with Crowley tiptoeing around the topic that he’d come here to discuss. He figured it was in his best interest to let Aziraphale get a little food and wine in him first, so he’d asked about Aziraphale’s work, the latest scoop on Gabriel, anything he could think of that _wasn’t_ his main topic. Aziraphale was rightfully suspicious, glancing up at Crowley every few sentences and giving him the most unimpressed stare that he could possibly manage, but he never pressed, never asked what it was that Crowley was clearly avoiding.

And then their food had finally come and Aziraphale had taken a few bites, doing that thing he does with the fluttering eyes and the euphoric sounds and Crowley had known that the time was finally here. So, he’d taken a long sip of his wine, set the glass down and just blurted out the words that had been clattering around inside of him for the entirety of the time since their phone call.

“They want to offer you a job.” Crowley confirmed. He didn’t like the way his fingers were trembling around the stem of the wine glass. “You said yesterday that they were talking to you about writing for their website.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale dabbed his napkin gently across his lips, his gaze stern as he looked across the table at Crowley. “But they didn’t tell me that their website was _Hellfire_.” 

Crowley flinches, properly chastised despite the fact that Aziraphale hadn’t said anything. Not that he needed to, Crowley knew that the issue at hand was entirely his own creation, a monster from his own mind. That didn’t make it any easier to deal with. “That’s my bad.”

“Indeed.” There’s a steely edge to Aziraphale’s voice that would worry Crowley if he weren’t so used to it. But Aziraphale’s distaste towards him had never been a secret and this cold tone was his default. Crowley barely even registered it anymore. He thinks it would be weird if he heard Aziraphale talking to him with a friendly tone, with a smile on his face. He wonders vaguely if he’ll ever get the chance to find out. This conversation certainly won’t be that chance, though, that much was for sure. 

“Look,” Crowley reclines in his chair and tries to look relaxed. He’s not certain that it works, but Aziraphale doesn’t do more than raise an eyebrow at him and take another bite of his food. “I’m not saying you have to take the job, I don’t give a damn about that. All I’m asking you to do is pretend to be my husband for the duration of the conversation with Beelzebub. That’s it.”

“You’re asking me to _lie_.” Aziraphale tries to clarify, punctuating his statement with a deliberate bite of his food.

Crowley shoots up in his seat, leaning forward so he’s closer to Aziraphale. He knows his elbows are on the table which is highly improper but he doesn’t care in the least. His fingers grip the stem of the wine glass tighter but it doesn’t ease his nerves. He didn’t expect this to be an easy conversation, but Aziraphale certainly wasn’t helping. “No, you chose to lie all on your own yesterday. I’m asking you to _continue_ lying. Just for one conversation, that’s it!”

“That’s hardly any better.” Aziraphale sets his fork down with a bit too much force, the utensil clattering off the plate and onto the table entirely. “Beelzebub doesn’t deserve to be dragged into whatever mess you’ve created.”

“ _I’ve_ created?” Crowley attempts to huff out a laugh but his throat feels dry. “You agreed with me.”

“You don’t need to keep bringing that up!” Aziraphale says just a touch too loudly and Crowley startles in his seat. Aziraphale takes a moment to collect himself, folding his hands in his lap. He gazes down at the plate of food in front of him as he takes a deep breath. “I apologize for my outburst.”

Crowley waits a beat, letting the silence settle back around them. And then, very gently, he says. “I _do_ need to keep bringing that up, angel. You know that. _We_ made this mess but _I_ am the only one being ruined by it.”

“You aren’t being _ruined_. Quit being dramatic.” Aziraphale admonishes, his hands still clasped in his lap. 

“No?” Crowley presses and it’s a stupid thing to do given Aziraphale’s outburst, he knows that. He _knows_ that but he’s clearly prone to doing stupid things and the list was determined to keep growing. “What would you call it, then? If you had to face off with your new boss and tell them that their only interactions with you thus far have been complete lies, would you not say you were ruined?”

Aziraphale made a particular face. It was the one he made when Crowley was making a point that he didn’t like. More often than not, Crowley had learned, the reason Aziraphale didn’t like the point was because it was right. It was clear to Crowley, who had learned all of Aziraphale’s most common expressions. It was in the pinch of his eyebrows, the exact curve of his mouth. Crowley could see it in the set of his shoulders, in the way that Aziraphale was looking in his general direction without looking directly _at_ him. He knew he’d made a point that Aziraphale couldn’t refute. 

“If that’s the case,” Aziraphale says after a moment and his voice is tight, strained. “I would advise you to perhaps consider not lying to your bosses in the future. Otherwise, you reap what you sow, as they say.” 

His meaning is completely clear: regardless of his participation in this, he isn’t going to help Crowley. At this rate, Crowley might as well just head back to the office and pack his desk. 

Crowley doesn’t say anything in response.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Aziraphale picking up his fork as the icy quiet continues to stretch on. He takes a bit of his food, savoring it in his mouth, but his eyes don’t flutter shut the way they usually do, his lips don’t tilt up at the corner in that sort of pure, unadulterated joy that Aziraphale has only ever demonstrated for food in the years that Crowley has known him. It had been one of the first things Crowley had learned about him when they’d met at the snack table of the convention, Aziraphale cradling a small plate laden with treats in his hand. 

In fact, he’d been mid way through a bite, shoulders dropping as he rolled his head back, when Crowley had first approached him. He hadn’t been sure why he’d done it, but there’d been something about the way the light caught Aziraphale’s hair, illuminating it like a halo that had drawn Crowley to him. And then he’d gotten closer, seen the look on Aziraphale’s face and considered just turning on his heel and stalking away because he didn’t have any idea what else to do. But then Aziraphale’s eyes had fluttered open and he hadn’t looked even the least bit abashed at being caught doing something so— Crowley wasn’t sure scandalous was the right word but it was the only one that came to mind. 

Crowley lifts his wine glass to his lips and sinks back in his chair again, gazing at Aziraphale over the top of his sunglasses. Aziraphale pointedly ignores it, cutting his steak and taking bites while looking anywhere else. 

If there was one thing Crowley had learned about Aziraphale in the time that he’d known him, it was that Aziraphale was stubborn. Unwavering to a fault, absolutely and completely unwilling to budge. Crowley could spend the rest of his night staring purposefully at Aziraphale, knowing full well that Aziraphale got the damn point and still, despite that, Aziraphale wouldn’t say a single word outside of a simple thank you and goodnight. 

“I’d ask you to do it for me,” Crowley begins again, the stern set of Aziraphale’s shoulders making him feel defeated. “But I know that won’t work. So forget I asked then, yeah? When Beelzebub calls you, you can tell them whatever you like. I did what I was supposed to do.”

Aziraphale sighs and finally raises his gaze to meet Crowley’s again. “And what were you supposed to do?”

“The whole bloody reason I know about the offer is because Beelzebub asked me to talk to you about it.” Crowley swirls his wine in his glass, gazing distantly into it, his stomach feeling like a led weight as it sinks to his feet. “Said you seemed like a tough sell yesterday, thought your husband might be able to change your mind.”

Crowley laughs bitterly and Aziraphale seems to soften the tiniest bit at that. Crowley sets his wine down and picks up his fork, moving his food around on his plate like a petulant teenager. He knows it’s stupid— the whole bloody thing is stupid. He’d been trying to give Aziraphale a hard time yesterday and instead he’d doused his career in gasoline. Now he had no choice but to stand back and watch Aziraphale light the match. 

Well, he’d started over once when he’d had his entire future ripped out from under him, he could do it again. Experience was the best teacher, as they said. 

(Crowley didn’t know who _they_ were, but they seemed to say a lot of things and very few of them were things that Crowley agreed with.)

“So tell them that, would you? Tell them that I at least talked to you, even if the rest of it was a lie.” Crowley drops his fork unceremoniously and pushes his chair away from the table, standing up abruptly. “Tell them that there is one honest bone in my body, a single shred of integrity. Or do you not even believe that?”

“I didn’t say—“ 

“You’re right. You _didn’t_ say. Not today, anyways.” Crowley knows people are looking at them, knows that he is becoming that person he hates who causes a scene in public. He needs to pull it together, needs to get out of here before it escalates. “You had a lot to say yesterday, angel. But I guess you used up all your words then, didn’t you?”

“Crowley—“ Aziraphale reached a hand across the table and attempted to snag Crowley’s sleeve but he was a moment too late. 

Crowley draws back, out of Aziraphale’s reach. He stares at Aziraphale hard through his sunglasses and wonders if Aziraphale can feel the weight of it. “Just proved what you’ve always thought of me, haven’t I? Bet you’ll sleep great tonight knowing you were right.”

“Crowley please—“

But the moment, and the conversation, is over. Before Aziraphale even has a chance to stand up, Crowley’s halfway to the hostess stand, wallet out in his hand. He pauses long enough to pay for their meal and then stalks out the door without ever looking back. 

* * *

Crowley kicks the door open. His hands are shoved too deep into his pockets, head down, shoulders hunched. He can’t be bothered to use the door properly. The bell above the door jingles all the same, announcing his arrival. He trudges up to the counter, his sour mood trailing him like a shadow. 

“Gee, what a pleasant surprise to see your smiling face.”

“Fuck off, Anathema.” Crowley barks back as he fishes his wallet out of his pocket. “The usual.”

“You want a coffee this late into the evening?” Anathema raises a brow at him, her hip popped against the counter. 

“Yes and I’d like it _without_ any of your unsolicited opinions, if you don’t mind.” Crowley growls, shoving his card into the chip reader with too much force. 

“Well, I’m fresh out of judgement-free coffees so you’ll just have to take what you can get.” Anathema grins at him as she moves down the line and begins preparing his drink. 

Crowley makes a show of rolling his eyes as he trails her on his side of the counter, throwing his arms on top and crossing them. At this time at night, the café is usually pretty empty. This is Crowley’s favorite time to come. In fact, this café was where he ran into Aziraphale the most, arriving for an evening of writing just as Aziraphale was leaving after a full day of writing. They never spoke to each other, not even enough to exchange socially dictated pleasantries, but they did physically see each other most days. 

The thought just sours Crowley’s mood further and he drops his forehead onto his crossed arms with a groan that he’s been suppressing for the entire day. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Anathema asks as she pops the lid on his drink. 

“Are you going to give me a choice?” Crowley retorts and he all but yanks the coffee from her hands, taking a sip and immediately scalding his mouth. 

“No.” Anathema agrees far too happily. Crowley groans again and pinches the bridge of his nose. He really just needs to go home, get some sleep and prepare for the job hunt that was inevitably going to start tomorrow. “I’ll meet you at the table in a minute.”

Crowley waves a hand in casual acknowledgement and drags himself away from the counter, slotting himself into his favorite booth. He leans his back against the window and stretches his long legs out on the seat next to him, sipping at his drink while he waits for Anathema. As much as he loves to give her a hard time, he knows he’ll feel better after bitching to her. She won’t take his side, she never does, but at least he’ll have a neutral party. 

He thinks back to his conversation with Aziraphale and wonders why he ever thought he had a chance of convincing Aziraphale to lie for him. From the very beginning, Aziraphale had made it abundantly clear that everything he did was based on unwavering integrity and a refusal to accept mediocrity. And then Crowley somehow gets this brilliant idea that he, the person Aziraphale hates second most— the title of most hated, of course, goes to Gabriel who has worked tirelessly to earn it— could somehow persuade him to give up everything he stood for. 

In hindsight, it really was one of his dumbest ideas.

Crowley’s somewhere in the depths of self loathing, deeper than he usually dives on a casual Wednesday evening, when Anathema finally makes it to the table with her own drink and a plate of scones. Crowley spares her a glance before snagging a scone and tearing it apart, popping each bite in his mouth. He hadn’t really eaten at his dinner with Aziraphale, far too nervous to even consider keeping food down. But now that it was over and Aziraphale’s signature was nearly printed on his death sentence, Crowley at least felt he could do this. 

“So,” Anathema begins, the word not nearly as innocuous as she obviously hopes it will be. “I’ve been hearing rumors.” 

“You know I don’t give a shit about that kind of stuff.” Crowley remarks around a mouthful of scone. Anathema looks disapprovingly at him.

She takes her own bite of scone, waiting until she’s swallowed before responding. “Not even when they’re about you?”

“I care even _less_ when they’re about me.” Crowley adjusts his legs, bending his knees for a more comfortable position. The side of his face rests on the window as he looks at Anathema and the cool glass feels good. “I don’t give a fuck what anyone has to say about me. Except that lady who told me I was going to Hell. She’s the only one I’ll listen to.” 

“You _are_ going to Hell.” Anathema breezes past that easily. “And this rumor isn’t just about you. It’s about Aziraphale, too.”

Fucking figures, Crowley thinks bitterly. Of course he couldn’t come here and get away from it. It had all started here, after all. He should’ve known that people would be watching and listening, ready to open their big mouths the moment he turned his back.

“Oh yeah, didn’t you hear? We eloped.” Anathema would have never believed him anyways, but the bitterness in Crowley’s voice still clearly stated how much of an absolute joke this entire thing was. Not the funny kind of joke, though. The pathetic kind. “Honeymoon is next week. We’re thinking of heading to America for it. Leave you nosy lot behind.”

Anathema snorts into her tea, hiding her grin behind the rim of her mug. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” She laughs, then adds. “Have you two ever even had a civil conversation?”

Crowley makes a series of noises that are neither an affirmative nor a denial, waving a hand through the air to make his point. He wasn’t really sure what his point was, but Anathema seemed to understand, at least, shaking her head fondly. She took another sip of her tea while Crowley snagged a second scone off of the plate. This was one of the perks of being friends with the café owner— an endless supply of free scones. And also, free drinks. Crowley only paid for his drinks occasionally and that’s only at his insistence. Anathema would likely run her business into the ground on her own, supplying all of her goods for free to everyone she liked. And Anathema tended to like, well, basically _everyone_. 

“So you’ve heard of the rumor.” Anathema begins again after a momentary silence in which Crowley had once again begun to brood. It was one of his well honed skills and he was able to slip into brooding at a moment’s notice if left alone. Anathema knew this about him, and therefore rarely gave him a long enough moment alone to do exactly that. “Which means you know how it began.”

“Oh, do I have information that you _don’t_?” Crowley teased, glancing back at her. “I thought you knew everything that happened within your walls?”

It was true— Anathema _did_ know everything that happened within these walls. It amazed Crowley, honestly. Anathema would come to him with information that nobody should know, and yet she always did know it. Her café was attached to a psychic shop— run by none other than Madame Tracy, the only person Crowley had ever met who was weirder than Anathema— and between these two places, every piece of gossip in the town was rounded up and stored. 

“I was off yesterday.” Anathema argues, finally taking a scone for herself. “And obviously I _did_ catch up on the gossip, or I wouldn’t know about this. So out with it, or I’ll just have to ask Aziraphale tomorrow when he’s here. Who’s side of the story do you want me to hear?”

Crowley groans and drops his head back against the window, shutting his eyes. “It’s going to be the same story regardless of who you hear it from.”

“Great,” Anathema smiles at him, a smile full of expectation. She wiggles in her seat, sinking lower into it and reclining back. She sets her tea down for a moment to rearrange her long skirts so that she’s better able to cross her legs and then she levels him with her undivided attention and Crowley hates it. “So then there’s no reason for you not to tell me. Spit it out, come on.”

There’s a lot of desire pooling in Crowley’s gut to just get up and run out of here, leaving this whole thing behind like he’d done to Aziraphale. But Crowley knows that’s not the right answer. It hadn’t done anything to solve his problem with Aziraphale so there was no chance it was going to do anything to solve this problem, either. Still, that didn’t mean that running away wasn’t Crowley’s preferred method of handling things. 

“Fine.” Crowley groans, finally moving his legs underneath the table and assuming a semi upright position. He glares at Anathema over the top of his glasses. “I crashed a meeting he was having with someone and pretended to be his husband. You know how I like to rile him up.”

“You pretended to be his _husband_ ?” Anathema laughs wholeheartedly across from him, leaning across the table to get closer to him as if they were co-conspirators, as if this was the hilarious prank that Crowley had intended it to be and not the disaster that it turned into. “How red did he turn? He had to have turned _so_ red, I can just imagine it!”

“Er, well,” Crowley hedges and Anathema reaches out to steal a piece of his scone right out from his hand. He swats at her, stealing her scone away from her while he explains. “The thing is… he went along with it.”

Anathema, who had been taking a sip of her tea at that moment to chase the piece of scone she had stolen, chokes on her drink. She slams her mug back on the table as she coughs, her eyes wide and wild. 

“He— what?” She manages to choke out between coughs.

Crowley waits a moment for her to stop choking, pushing her mug closer to her when she finally starts breathing normally again. Anathema lifts it up and takes a few tiny, careful sips. They seem to go down well enough and she’s finally settled enough to wipe at her watering eyes and suck in a few really deep breaths. 

“Didn’t know our marriage would nearly kill you.” Crowley remarks wryly.

Anathema tries to mirror his smile, but she’s still a little unsteady. She starts to talk, has to clear her throat, and then tries again. “What did you expect would happen? That’s the most ridiculous story I’ve ever heard.”

“It gets worse.” Crowley says and he gets a small amount of enjoyment out of the way Anathema’s eyes rise in unbridled surprise. It’s all the joy he’s capable of finding the situation, though, given what he has to say next. “The person Aziraphale was talking to is my new boss.”

“No—!”

“And they called me into their office today.”

“Crowley—”

“Because they want to offer Aziraphale a job. And they want his _husband_ to persuade him to take it.”

Anathema gasps, her mouth open in a wide, surprised, disbelieving smile. “You’re kidding.”

“Wish I were.” Crowley answers, glancing down at the table. “Fuck, I wish I were kidding. Do you know how much easier my life would be right now if I were kidding?”

Anathema lets out a breathless laugh. “What are you going to do? Holy _shit_ , what are you going to do? Tell your boss you were lying?”

“Not really the best way to start off with a new boss, is it?” 

“So you’re going to, what? Convince Aziraphale to go along with it?” Anathema shakes her head like she can’t even believe the idea herself. Crowley doesn’t blame her. “You know how stubborn he is. He’d _never_.”

“Yeah, he made that pretty clear.” Crowley grinds out, the words like knives in his throat. He swallows to try and get rid of the feeling but it doesn’t work. “That’s where I just came from. Took him to dinner to try and convince him but he, obviously, said no.”

They stare at each other in silence for a few moments, Anathema seeming to process all of the information she’s just been told. In the meantime, the pit of despair that Crowley’s been trying to sink into all night expands beneath him and starts to reach for him. Crowley lets it, feeling the way it snakes around him and drags him down. This entire situation really is fucked, he deserves to feel a bit of despair. 

“So you’re going to tell your boss, then?” Anathema finally asks and Crowley glances up at her. She looks earnest, concerned. Crowley can see the cogs in her mind turning as she tries to come up with possible solutions. She’s as brilliant as she is odd, but Crowley doesn’t think even she can come up with something to solve this mess. 

“I’m not going to do a damn thing.” Crowley says, taking another sip of his coffee which is now, at least, a reasonable temperature. “If Aziraphale wants to tell Beelzebub, he’s welcome to. But that’s on him.”

“This is your mess, Crowley.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? It’s _our_ mess. He lied, too!” Crowley’s outburst is unexpected for both of them and Anathema draws up a little in her seat. She’s smiling, though, and Crowley wonders how he managed to surround himself with people who don’t care in the slightest about his moods. “It’s up to both of us to fix, not just me. I offered my solution and he didn’t take it. So now it’s his turn for a solution.”

“That’s—” Anathema thinks for a moment before selecting the right word. “Rather reasonable of you, actually. Petty, definitely, but I can’t argue that logic.”

“Tell Aziraphale that, would you?” Crowley drops his head onto the table. “What’s the harm, really? All he has to do is keep the lie up for _one_ conversation. We both know he isn’t going to say yes to the job, he hates being told what to write. So it’s not like there’s any danger of him having to lie long-term.”

“Aziraphale’s too—”

“Uptight?”

“No.”

“Stuffy?”

“No.”

“Stubborn? Frustrating?”

“ _Crowley_.” Anathema chides, but she’s laughing. 

“Am I wrong?” Crowley can feel the uptick at the corner of his mouth that means that he’s smiling too, despite the situation. Maybe finding humor in it was the only way to get through it. Or maybe it’s just a temporary reprieve and all the panic is going to come back once he’s alone again. That’s the more likely scenario. “Did I describe him incorrectly?”

“He’s very _proper_.” Anathema ignores Crowley’s goading. “But he’s not a bad guy. I’m sure he’ll salvage the situation as best he can.”

“Maybe.” Crowley agrees. “But even then, he’ll only be doing it to spare his reputation. He certainly doesn’t give a damn about mine.”

“He doesn’t hate you nearly as much as you think.” There’s a certain look in Anathema’s eyes that Crowley doesn’t like. It makes him squirm because it implies that Anathema is letting him in on some secret, sharing something with him that he isn’t meant to know.

“He’s certainly given me plenty of proof that he does.” Crowley says quickly and then changes the subject. “But either way, now you know. So tell me about the other gossip I missed. I need a new article, you know.”

“And _you_ know that I won’t let you write about my customers!”

“I would get their consent first!” Crowley leaps into the well worn argument, feeling Anathema’s exasperation settle around him like a warm blanket and soothing his fried nerves. “I’m not a _monster._ ” 

And just like that, they’re off on some side tangent, Anathema coming to life before him. She gestures with her hands, covers her mouth to whisper dramatically and laughs boisterously as she regales him with all the happenings of the area. Crowley listens as attentively as he can, desperate for something to cling to that isn’t his fear of what tomorrow morning is going to bring. 

The time passes by as Crowley sips his coffee and then Anathema is shooing him out the door. 

“I have a date tonight.” She tells him as she holds the door open for him. “With Newt.”

“The bloke who nearly lost a week’s worth of my articles just by _looking_ at my computer?” Crowley blanches. “Surely you can’t—“

“He’s _nice_.” Anathema replies firmly. “Which is more than can be said about you. Now go! And call me tomorrow to tell me what happens!”

With a halfhearted wave and a promise to keep her updated, Crowley leaves the café and finally heads home, hoping to just drop into a deep sleep instead of sitting up anxiously all night. Tomorrow will be whatever it will be. His only choice now is to just face it. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Angel,” Crowley said breathlessly as he skidded to a halt in front of Aziraphale. “You’re here.”
> 
> “It would appear that way.” Aziraphale replied, his eyes scanning over Crowley. “Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay it's very late Tuesday night for me which is BASICALLY WEDNESDAY. Also I have a busy day tomorrow so I'm posting it today instead. It's close enough that we're all just going to squint and pretend I posted on the right day, alright? I'm excited for you guys to read this chapter but I'm even more excited for next chapter!
> 
> Thank you guys SO MUCH for all the love you've given this fic already, you guys have brought me so much joy and inspiration, I cannot express enough how much it means to me <3

The elevator dings and the door opens.

Crowley can’t say why that draws his attention, but it does. Perhaps it’s because he is absolutely not working, not even  _ pretending _ to work. Previous to the elevator dinging, Crowley had been staring blankly at his computer screen, twirling a pen between his fingers. Theory said that he had an email open, but his eyes hadn’t focused on it long enough to determine if that was actually true. He had an article due by midnight and he knew that he should be working on it but he was mostly waiting for the telltale  _ ping _ that would indicate the email had arrived in his inbox, effectively firing him for his lie. It’d probably have a few mockeries in there, too— Beelzebub just seemed like that kind of person.

Or maybe, Crowley had thought absently, Beelzebub would storm out of their office and shred Crowley to bits right where he sat, in front of all of his coworkers. Oh, Hastur would  _ love _ that. Crowley had pictured it easily, Hastur’s shit-eating grin, the way he would recline in his chair and just  _ watch _ , eating up every second of it. This train of thought had been occupying Crowley’s mind most recently and he’d just been starting to consider throwing his pen at Hastur for these imagined crimes when he had been pulled from his thoughts. He still wanted to throw his pen at Hastur, though, and honestly it took a lot of restraint to resist the urge.

Instead, though, the elevator opened and Crowley swiveled in his chair to watch the doors part and reveal Aziraphale, clasping a briefcase in front of him with both hands and looking about as nervous as Crowley had ever seen him look. His shoulders were stiff, his spine absolutely straight, but the frown on his face told the whole truth and Crowley could see it, even from this distance. More than just  _ see _ it, Crowley could  _ feel _ it echoing in his heart, the uncertainty and the discomfort with the situation at hand. It had been nestled deep inside his chest since he woke up this morning and now Aziraphale was not only here, but he was wearing those feelings plainly on his face. 

Aziraphale’s eyes scanned the room as the doors opened, taking in what was before him. Crowley realized then, that Aziraphale had likely never been here before. Very few people had if they didn’t work for  _ Hellfire _ . Crowley had never asked why, but it was company policy that no interviews happened inside the premises. Crowley watched, unknowingly holding his breath, as Aziraphale’s gaze moved closer and closer to him, finally settling on him. The moment their eyes locked across the expanse of the long room, Crowley nearly tipped out of his chair, the pen dropping from his grip and clattering against the wood flooring. 

Aziraphale stepped out of the elevator and straightened his posture deliberately, a feat that impressed Crowley considering how rigid Aziraphale had already been standing. And that was all it took before Crowley was shoving his long legs vaguely underneath him, and shooting up from his chair, stumbling over his limbs as he rushed to greet Aziraphale in front of the elevator. Aziraphale watched him approach, watched the way he teetered in his rush and was smiling in vague amusement by the time Crowley got to him, nearly forgetting to hit the breaks and almost toppling the both of them over. 

“Angel,” Crowley said breathlessly as he skidded to a halt in front of Aziraphale. “You’re here.”

“It would appear that way.” Aziraphale replied, his eyes scanning over Crowley. “Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me.”

“What— what—  _ why _ are you here?” Crowley shakes his head when the words start to betray him. It’s an old habit of his— the more stressed he is, the more he stumbled over his words. He often had too many thoughts to express any of them at once and ended up shoving a bunch of half sentences together into something that didn’t, in all actuality, resemble any real thoughts.

The amusement on Aziraphale’s face remains as Crowley forces his way through the question. For all that he’s clearly getting a good laugh at Crowley, though, Aziraphale’s stress doesn’t seem to dissipate. He’s practically vibrating with it, his casual facade held together by nothing other than the sheer force of will. Crowley had been on the receiving end of Aziraphale’s strong will many times in the past but never has he seen it used like this— like a life vest to keep him afloat in an unfamiliar situation.

And that’s when it dawns on Crowley— he’s never seen Aziraphale in an unfamiliar situation. He’s never seen Aziraphale in a situation where he wasn’t in control, wasn’t confident and fully informed. And perhaps  _ that _ was the biggest shock of this moment. 

“I believe,” Aziraphale says pointedly and a little too loudly, his gaze focusing briefly over Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley realizes the sign he’s being given and tries to straighten his posture. He has no idea who is approaching them but he understands the indication of Aziraphale’s subtle shift in tone— they’re being watched. “You told me about a job offer I had, did you not?”

“I did,” Crowley confirms and he stares  _ very hard _ into Aziraphale’s eyes, trying with all of his might to have a silent conversation with the man. It doesn’t work. Aziraphale is looking back at him but the shutters have closed on his expression and Crowley can no longer glean any amount of information from it. It immediately sets his nerves on edge. “But last we spoke, you weren’t particularly interested.”

Which may or may not be true, Crowley doesn’t actually know since they never actually talked about the offer itself or Aziraphale’s interest in it. For all Crowley knew, Aziraphale could be more than willing to switch the scope of his career, get out from under Gabriel’s boot and explore a whole new side of his writing. Just because Crowley didn’t think that was likely didn’t mean he was right. He didn’t actually know Aziraphale’s career satisfaction. Maybe he  _ was _ interested in the job. The thing that Aziraphale had not been interested in was pretending to be Crowley’s husband. That was the only thing Crowley knew with absolute certainty at the moment. 

That, and the fact that his stomach was in knots because he was seconds away from witnessing his own downfall. He was Icarus and Aziraphale was the sun. He could feel his wings melting already. 

“Yes, well.” Aziraphale pauses and finally glances back at Crowley, his expression turning as purposefully neutral as it can. Crowley understands that this is meant to be a casual conversation— to  _ appear _ as a casual conversation anyways, to anyone on the outside. It was a hard feat to pull off, though, because Crowley felt like this conversation was heavier than anything he’d ever carried the burden of before. “I realized that you were right.”

“Aziraphale!” Beelzebub’s voice sounds from a few steps behind Crowley and Crowley startles a little at the sudden intrusion, even though he’d known that someone was approaching. Crowley does the proper thing, abandoning his attempts at reading between the lines of Aziraphale’s expression and stepping aside to allow Beelzebub to join them and complete their group. “I’m so glad you changed your mind and decided to come in today.”

Aziraphale glances sidelong at Crowley and Crowley can’t stop himself from sucking in a breath as he waits for the final blow, “Yes. As it turns out, my husband can be rather persuasive.”

The entire world stops. 

The clocks stop ticking, the birds stop chirping, the Earth stops spinning. Every single thing Crowley thought he knew was flipped on its head, leading him unbalanced. He feels like he’s stumbling. He’s not, he knows he’s not— he’s rooted to his spot, completely unable to move a single muscle, unable to even  _ breathe _ . His brain isn’t computing anything other than the reverberating echo of the word  _ husband  _ that had just slipped off of Aziraphale’s tongue. 

“Is that so?” Beelzebub asks, their gaze sliding over to Crowley.

It takes a moment for Crowley to even register that he’s being looked at and an even longer second for the words that Beelzebub said to seep through to his brain. He was certain that he looked like a deer in headlights, caught entirely off guard by the entire situation. Crowley had spent the entire morning thinking up different scenarios for how this situation was going to go and none of them— not a single one— had gone even remotely close to this. None of them had included Aziraphale taking his side and covering his ass because, truthfully, Crowley didn’t think that was even the tiniest bit of a possibility. 

Aziraphale had snapped at him last night, raising his voice, his feathers clearly ruffled. Aziraphale had lost his very carefully crafted cool at just the mere  _ idea _ of lying to Beelzebub, it didn’t seem like even the most remote possibility that Aziraphale would follow that up with lying to Beelzebub’s face. And yet here they were. 

Crowley picks his jaw up off the ground and lifts one corner of his mouth in a lopsided smile to hide the mixture of nervousness and disbelief he’s feeling. “Don’t look at me, I’m just as surprised as you are. Lord knows I never win a fight with him.”

That, Crowley thinks as the words leave his mouth, is a very blatant lie. There is absolutely nobody on this Earth who is anywhere  _ near  _ as surprised as Crowley is. He isn’t sure anyone has  _ ever  _ been as surprised as he is at this moment. In fact, he didn’t even think he was going to be able to get any words out. He honestly deserves a reward for the fact that he’s still standing here, even  _ attempting  _ to be a part of this conversation. On top of that, he deserves a second award for the fact that Beelzebub doesn’t seem to suspect anything. How that’s possible, Crowley doesn’t know because he feels like it must be written into every line of his expression.

“It wasn’t a  _ fight _ .” Aziraphale replies sternly, his eyebrows drawing together in disapproval. “We had a  _ disagreement  _ and we talked it out. You made some rather good points and, well, I thought I at least owed it to all of us to hear Beelzebub out.”

There’s a wry smile on Beelzebub’s lips that indicates that this sort of back and forth is familiar to them— or at the very least, it’s what they expected to find when putting the two of them together. Crowley knows it’s a good sign, knows that they’re passing some sort of test right now, even if Beelzebub doesn’t realize that they even are testing them. Though Crowley expects that they do know, that the test is deliberate. Beelzebub had questioned their marriage initially, after all. Crowley wouldn’t be even the tiniest bit surprised to find that Beelzebub thought they were lying and was trying to expose the truth, the raw underbelly of the dynamic they  _ actually  _ had with each other. 

Or perhaps it was just Crowley’s shock and paranoia talking.

It was hard for Crowley to tell. 

“I’ll keep his persuasiveness in mind in case we need it for any future articles.” Beelzebub says before gesturing with their arm towards the offices in the back. “Now, shall we go have a chat?”

Aziraphale smiles a perfectly friendly smile, something entirely benign and harmless and Crowley thinks, for a moment, that his knees might just give out underneath him. The world still doesn’t seem to have started moving again, but Crowley can’t tell for sure because he’s barely even focusing on his  _ breathing  _ let alone anything else. He thinks he might have his own half convincing smile on his face but he’s lost all sense of everything.

“That sounds lovely.” Aziraphale says after a moment. And then— and  _ then _ he has the audacity to not just  _ turn _ to Crowley, but to lean forward and  _ kiss  _ him briefly on the cheek, pulling away with a smug smile and murmuring, “I’ll see you after the meeting, darling.”

“Right.” Crowley says, numb all the way to the tips of his toes. “Er— good luck.”

And just like that, Beelzebub and Aziraphale are gone, taking off down the aisle, Beelzebub murmuring things and pointing as they go. A part of Crowley knows that he should be impressed— Beelzebub has worked here for a mere twenty-four hours and already they are so familiar with the place that they’re pointing out things that Crowley has never even noticed and he’s worked here for  _ years _ . Aziraphale listens attentively, the way he always does, Crowley has noticed. Even when Aziraphale  _ hates _ the subject matter— as he often does when it’s Crowley who is doing the talking— he listens attentively.

Sometimes it’s just polite, like now. Sometimes it’s so he can pick everything said apart, like he does with Crowley.

It’s almost funny, actually, the way Crowley can see Aziraphale making mental notes of everything he says just to come back later and shred it to bits. Aziraphale is sharp minded, too. He never writes down anything Crowley says, but he certainly never forgets it, either. Sometimes Aziraphale will circle back to things three topics ago that Crowley has completely forgotten that he ever even said. It’s like a game, both of them playing each other’s weaknesses and watching how the rest of the conversation unravels. Crowley makes it a particular challenge of his to throw Aziraphale off balance, to inject little statements that will cause Aziraphale to falter mid-sentence or pause before completing his thought.

Those are the moments Crowley lives for.

Beelzebub and Aziraphale make it all the way to the end before Crowley’s brain kicks back on enough to control his legs. It’s certainly not functioning enough to form any sort of full thought— that capability had left with Aziraphale’s lips after that kiss and there wasn’t a likely chance that Crowley would be getting it back any time soon. Somehow his legs manage to carry him back to his desk, holding steady just long enough to pull his chair out and then he’s collapsing back into it, his hand finding his cheek without any conscious thought of his own. 

He thinks the world  _ still _ isn’t moving, even though he is, and his cheek is tingling underneath his fingers. He can’t decide if he’s angry or  _ furious _ — or maybe just thankful? Emotions are complicated things that Crowley doesn’t like to deal with. If he had his way, he’d never have another feeling again and that would be just fine with him. Instead, he has  _ too many  _ feelings banging around inside of him, playing his ribs like drums, treating his lungs like punching bags. Crowley doesn’t have any experience with this sort of thing and it makes him hate it all the more.

Crowley’s some number of minutes into staring blankly ahead of him— it’s impossible for him to say how many— when Hastur finally swivels in his seat and lets out a loud sigh. “You look awfully surprised considering he’s supposed to be your husband.”

“I’m sure this is hard for you to understand,” Crowley says automatically, finally snapping his attention back to reality. “Since you are, in fact, the very definition of unlovable—”

“You ass—”

“But sometimes, when two people love each other very,  _ very _ much—”

“You need to shut your—”

“ _ You _ are the one who brought it up.” Crowley points out, settling into the familiar snark that comes with any conversation with Hastur. 

Hastur stares at him from across the hallway, his jaw set in a solid line, lips downturned in a familiar frown. “I’m just saying, most people aren’t surprised to see their husbands.”

“I feel like you’re probably trying to make some point.” Crowley concedes marginally, leaning back in his chair and propping an ankle up on the opposite knee. His cheek is still tingling and his mind is torn between whirling constantly and screeching to a dead halt as he tries to comprehend what is happening at the moment. The only thing he has control over at the moment is his primal need to give Hastur a hard time. It’s the one thing that never seems to abandon him. “So if you’d do us both a favor and hurry up and get on with it, that’d be lovely.”

“I’ve made my point.” Hastur growls. “I don’t think he’s your husband.”

“And I’ve already answered that.” Crowley mocks back, “You don’t understand love so I don’t expect you to understand this.”

“I will find out what’s going on here.” Hastur promises, slowly turning back towards his desk. “You mark my words, Crowley.”

“Marked.” Crowley leans forward to grab the pen he’d been spinning between his fingers earlier, snagging a blank sheet of paper, too. He scribbles down Hastur’s words, holding up the sheet of paper to show Hastur exactly what he’d done. And then, as soon as Hastur had finished glaring, Crowley crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it in the garbage can underneath his desk. “That’s my special filing cabinet for things I don’t want to forget.”

* * *

The inside of the Beelzebub’s office isn’t what Aziraphale expected it to be.

It’s a weird sensation considering he hadn’t really had any expectations going in. Or rather, he didn’t think he’d had expectations. If someone had asked him previous to the door closing what he had thought he’d be walking into, he wouldn’t have really been able to answer but he was certain that nothing he dreamed up would be similar to the room he was actually standing in currently. The wall opposite the door appeared to be one large bookshelf, packed to the brim with a variety of books that seemed to range from leisure books to textbooks and Aziraphale recognized a great many of them just by the spines.

The books, though, were the only personal touch in the office. The desk was completely clean of anything that could even hint at what Beelzebub was like outside the office. The only other thing that even made it apparent that this office belonged to someone was the coat hung on the hook just behind the door. Aziraphale tried to reason that Beelzebub was new to the job and hadn’t had a chance to unpack anything but something in his gut told him that this office wouldn’t change from its current appearance at any time in the future. 

“Please,” Beelzebub gestured to the chair across from the desk. “Have a seat.”

Aziraphale does as he’s told, perching on the very edge of the chair and clutching his briefcase in his lap as if it’s armor and can protect him from the conversation at hand.

He doesn’t honestly know how much the subject of Crowley is going to come up but he is absolutely certain that even  _ one _ mention of Crowley is too many. He’s also absolutely certain that Crowley coming up is completely inevitable, absolutely inescapable. Aziraphale takes a steadying breath in through his nose. He had chosen to be here, had chosen to lie to Beelzebub’s face for the second time. He had  _ chosen _ to go to bat for Crowley and to keep their lie up so that Crowley wouldn’t face any backlash.

He hadn’t done it  _ for _ Crowley, though. The man certainly didn’t deserve Aziraphale coming to his aid. He’d done it because— well, frankly, Crowley was right. Aziraphale wasn’t about to put it so simply to Crowley’s face, but he had made a fair point at dinner yesterday. Nobody had forced Aziraphale to lie when they’d first met Beelzebub, he’d made that decision entirely on his own. Which meant that the fallout of that decision was at least fifty percent his. And while it would’ve been easy to blow Crowley off and to leave him to clean the mess up on his own, Aziraphale couldn’t do that in good conscience. 

He was an active participant in the lie so he needed to be an active participant in the solution for the following problem, too. 

“Thank you for having me.” Aziraphale draws forth every ounce of propriety he has within him, clinging to it for dear life and hoping it somehow buoys him through the conversation and carries him out the other side of the oncoming tidal wave. “I know we began to touch on the topic the other day.”

“Yes.” Beelzebub answers and Aziraphale knows he’s skirting too close to the forbidden topic of Crowley right off the bat, but he figures he has to. Avoiding anything that even  _ hinted _ at Crowley would certainly be suspicious. He just had to skate the edges of the topic, peppering it in just enough to be believable, but not enough to draw any sort of questions. “That’s no problem, though. I wasn’t planning on making you an entire offer in the middle of a coffee shop.”

“No, I don’t suppose that would’ve been very practical.” Aziraphale agrees mildly, throwing in a small laugh to lighten the situation.

All he had to do was get through this conversation. He’d politely decline Beelzebub’s offer, stating that he already had enough work from Gabriel to keep him busy for quite some time and he simply wasn’t interested in anything else. The articles he had written for the local paper were few and far between and only when something in particular struck his interest in a way that he couldn’t quite shake. Whenever he wrote anything for the local paper it was on his terms, a subject he was interested in and on a timeline that he set for himself. He already had Gabriel telling him what to do with most of his time, he wasn’t about to hand over the control of what very little precious time he still had to himself to somebody else. 

Not to mention that declining the job would all but solve the problem of their lie. Aziraphale would disappear off of the radar and Crowley would simply have to draw a few hard boundaries, insisting that he wasn’t willing to talk about his personal life at work and then, well, the lie would fade out from the collective consciousness until nothing of it remained and they would both be free to go about their lives as normal. It was about as close to an ideal solution as there could possibly be in such a twisted situation.

“I  _ am _ glad that I ran into you in that shop.” Beelzebub continues, presumably unaware of the turmoil Aziraphale was trying desperately to conceal. It was a small mercy. “I was planning on reaching out to you but the only information I could find to contact you was through that Gabriel guy.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale ducks his head in understanding. “Yes, you see, I keep my personal information rather private now that my writings have started to become rather, well,  _ known _ . It was starting to be a bit much, as it were, and I was finding that I couldn’t really leave my work behind at all. And that doesn’t make for much of a personal life, let alone a  _ healthy _ personal life.”

“I can't deny that it makes sense.” Beelzebub nods their head once in understanding. “Though I must admit that you guys are more successful at it than I would’ve expected. It doesn’t seem like a single person here knew about you. You should’ve seen Ligur’s face when I told him, jaw nearly hit the ground.”

Well, it’s now or never. Aziraphale either has to sell the lie or own up right here and now, there is no other choice. And at this point, he’s already made his decision. He tightens his hands around the handle of his briefcase and raises his gaze to look back at Beelzebub, schooling his face into his most neutral— maybe borderline apologetic— expression.

“Yes, I can imagine. Crowley has always been a rather private person himself. And well, as I said, I’ve done my best to keep my own personal life hidden, so we’ve agreed that it would be better to just not discuss our relationship much with those around us.” It comes out far steadier than he’d been expecting it to and Aziraphale is about a moment away from mentally patting himself on the back when he notices the raised eyebrow Beelzebub is giving him.

“You call your husband by his last name?”

Aziraphale Fell is a lot of things: brilliant, strong-willed and completely capable were perhaps the things he was most known for. Being quick on his feet was perhaps the thing he was  _ least _ known for. Aziraphale functioned off of deep research. He didn’t talk about things he didn’t know extensively and he certainly didn’t ever put himself in situations where he could potentially be caught off guard. It wasn’t how he liked to live his life. He didn’t spend all that time researching to end up in the midst of conversations on topics he knew nothing about.

And yet, he found himself sitting across from Beelzebub, brain scrambling for some excuse to cling to while all of his self control went towards keeping his mouth shut until he knew what he was going to say. 

Beelzebub was looking back at him expectantly, the same eyebrow raised in question. Aziraphale knew he didn’t have long to come up with an answer, but he honestly wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He’d always called Crowley by his last name, that was how Crowley had introduced himself to Aziraphale. He hadn’t ever known Crowley as anything else—

The idea stuck in his mind all at once and Aziraphale nearly sagged in relief.

“Ah, that does seem rather odd, doesn’t it?” He starts out, trying to sound casual, to get his nerves under control and make sure his voice comes out steady. “I suppose I’ve always called him that when referring to him to other people. He prefers people call him Crowley, you see, and that was the way he first introduced himself to me. So it’s usually the way I refer to him in public, too, despite the fact that we’re married now.”

“So, does that make you Aziraphale Crowley, then?” Beelzebub asks, propping an elbow on the desk between the two of them and resting their chin in their palm.

“Oh, heaven’s no!” Aziraphale replies immediately, the sound of their two names together nearly short circuiting his brain. He barely has enough control of his mind left to realize how incriminating his outburst had been, but the look on Beelzebub’s face makes it clear enough and he scrambles to fix the cover he was so desperately close to blowing. “That is, we’re both rather well known by our own individual names, you see. Since we both have a rather—- extensive publishing history, you could say, we thought it might complicate things if either one of us were to go switching our name around. It hardly seemed a fair thing to ask only one of us to do.”

Aziraphale’s mouth is moving and words are definitely coming out of it, but he doesn’t seem to hear any of them. If it weren’t for the fact that he were talking, Aziraphale wouldn’t even be sure that he was  _ breathing _ at this exact moment. He shifts the briefcase in his lap because he needs to do  _ something _ to deal with the jittery energy darting around underneath his skin.

“You two seem like an odd pair.” Beelzebub comments, reminiscent of what they’d said in the coffee shop the other day. Aziraphale is fully prepared to be offended by the statement, to work himself into a bluster and perhaps even use it as an excuse to make the topic of Crowley permanently off limits so as to safeguard himself, when Beelzebub follows up on their initial thought. “I like it. It’s interesting. Have you two ever considered writing something together?”

The words slip out of Aziraphale’s mouth totally unbidden. “Hardly. I’m not certain he’d even be able to  _ read _ an entire article of mine, let alone write one like it.”

The moment the words leave his tongue, Aziraphale snaps his mouth shut, feeling his eyes widen as he stares at a clearly bemused Beelzebub across the table from him. For being someone who prides themselves on their intellect, Aziraphale doesn’t appear to be showing much of it in this conversation and he curses himself for it. 

He isn’t honestly sure if it’s the situation or the implication of his ties to Crowley that has Aziraphale in such a tizzy but he is absolutely positive that he needs to get it under control. Or, more preferably, he needs to get out of the situation all together. That had always been Aziraphale’s way of dealing with things— decidedly  _ not _ dealing with them. At least, not dealing with them at the source. He may go home and pace his flat, talking the situation through aloud to himself, or perhaps explain the whole ridiculous nonsense over a cup of tea to Anathema. Aziraphale would deal with it somehow, but that somehow most certainly wouldn’t involve Beelzebub if Aziraphale had anything to say about it.

“Well, I’ll save that for a later offer, then.” Beelzebub laughs, but there’s something sharp in their gaze— like they’re looking for something in Aziraphale.

Logically, Aziraphale knows that Beelzebub has no reason to believe they’re lying. There isn’t a shred of doubt any reasonable person should have because, truthfully, there’s nothing about him or Crowley that distinctly implies that they  _ couldn’t _ be together. Just because Aziraphale knows that it’s absolutely impossible, unbelievable from every aspect of the imagination, doesn’t mean anyone else— besides Crowley, certainly, and perhaps Anathema— would have any idea. 

“I daresay any offer involving my husband is an offer I’ll have to refuse.” Aziraphale tries to draw back up the lighthearted mood from the beginning, tries to force his brain cells together long enough that they figure out how to navigate this situation that appears to be turning messier by the comment. “I spend enough time with him as it is, you absolutely cannot convince me to spend even _ more _ time with him. I do have  _ some _ self respect, I’ll have you know.”

That earns a chuckle from Beelzebub and it’s enough to let some of the tension drain out of Aziraphale’s shoulders. He still feels on edge, his legs itching to just stand him up and march him right out of there, not stopping or looking back until he’s all the way out in the parking lot, loading his briefcase into his car.

“Well, lucky for you this first offer doesn’t involve your husband at all. And, it’s relatively low pressure, I think.” Beelzebub slides their elbow off the table and resumes sitting casually. 

Aziraphale tries to mimic their posture but his spine simply won’t allow it. He isn’t Crowley, after all, who seems to have some sort of allergy to gravity in general. “First offer?”

“Yes.” Beelzebub’s expression shifts just slightly but it’s enough to tell Aziraphale that they’re finally— finally,  _ finally _ — settling on the topic of business. Whatever mess this entire situation was, he seems to have managed it, somehow. “You see, I’ve just taken over this role, as I’m sure Crowley has told you.” Aziraphale nods along because he knows he’s supposed to. Crowley  _ did _ tell him that, but that’s irrelevant at this moment. “And there are a lot of changes I’d like to see this company make. One of the main things I want to do is bring more educational pieces to the website. I think there are a lot of people out there who like to learn and are looking for a place to get their information. Since we already have so many people coming to our site for entertainment, I thought we might benefit from adding education to it, as well.”

In their conversation at the coffee shop, Beelzebub had hinted towards this idea briefly. Of course, Aziraphale didn’t know what website they’d been referring to at the time but he’d been in support of the idea all the same— he was in support of  _ any _ idea that increased educational resources for people and added to the validity and integrity of a website. That was, after all, one of his biggest passions. 

“I admit that I find the idea admirable and I do hope you continue to pursue it, but I’m afraid I have my plate quite full with Gabriel and my papers for the university.” Aziraphale answers, finally feeling like he’s back in charted territory, finally in a part of the conversation where his rehearsed answers make sense and can be utilized.

“Well, that’s the thing.” Beelzebub has a dastardly glint in their eye— Aziraphale recognizes it because he sees it in Crowley’s eye whenever he’s about to say something that Aziraphale won’t like. Aziraphale feels his stomach plummet towards his feet as he waits for the rest of Beelzebub’s statement. “I’ve actually spoken to Gabriel.”

“You have?”

“Like I said, that was the only contact information I had for you. And I had always been planning on reaching out to you.” Beelzebub explains with an air of forced nonchalance, as if this isn’t about to turn into a big curve ball. But Aziraphale can feel it coming in the core of his bones. “So I had spoken to him before I even met you in the coffee shop.”

There’s a momentary pause that’s filled with the heavy weight of the words that are going to come next. Aziraphale feels crushed by them before he even hears them, even  _ knows _ what they are.

“And?”

“ _ And _ , he thinks my idea is great. He thinks it would diversify your portfolio and make you an even more common household name. I happen to think he’s right.”

“I’m not trying to be a household name.”

“No, but you have ideas that should be common household knowledge, do you not?”

“Well—”

“All I’m doing is offering you a chance to get those ideas out.” Beelzebub holds their hands up in mock surrender, eyes trained on Aziraphale as they gauge his reaction. 

“I won’t deny that the ideas are there,” Aziraphale begins diplomatically. “However, I will say that I hardly feel like I have the time to explore and develop them, let alone  _ write _ them. I have very little free time as it stands currently.”

“If you agree to this initial offer, Gabriel has agreed to give you a month off of working on any projects related to him.” Beelzebub interjects, throwing Aziraphale entirely off course.

Aziraphale had practiced a great many scenarios in his head, preparing his counter arguments and steeling his nerves so that he would be able to hold his own in this conversation. Aziraphale didn’t know a lot about Beelzebub, but he’d had his fair share of interactions with Gabriel and Aziraphale had figured Beelzebub couldn’t be  _ worse _ than Gabriel. Every meeting Aziraphale had with Gabriel was spent being spoken over, talked down to and told what to do. He hardly ever got a word in edgewise and if he did happen to manage to squeak something in, it was typically shut down immediately. 

Whenever Aziraphale had a meeting with Gabriel, he spent  _ days _ preparing himself for it, trying to talk himself into speaking his mind— or speaking some of his most mild thoughts, anyways. Because the truth was, Aziraphale was not brave and Aziraphale didn’t like change and standing up to Gabriel involved both of those things. 

“He—” Aziraphale started, the sentence abandoning him one word in. The wheels in his mind didn’t appear to be turning at all, the facts not connecting to create the bigger picture. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

“Let me just give you the offer.” Beelzebub sounds smug, pleased with themself for catching Aziraphale so off guard. 

“Yes, perhaps that would be best.”

“Because this is a trial period— both for you with this role but also with me for this company— the offer is starting out on a one month basis. I am asking you to write four articles, one per week. The topic can be anything of your choosing, I will not attempt to give you any direction. The only regulations you’ll have from me is that I will ask you to send it to our editors at least a day before posting and I will have strict posting dates. The rest is entirely up to you. Because we will be doing an introductory panel on you if you say yes, Gabriel and I have worked out a deal where we mention all of your already published articles to lead more readers to it and he will give you the entire month you’re writing for us off. If things work out and this draws in the readership I anticipate, we’ll have to have another conversation with Gabriel to figure out how to proceed from there. But for now, consider it a one month trial.”

“I could write  _ anything _ I want?” 

“Anything at all. You don’t even have to get your idea approved by me first. You could head home today and start working on it and not say a thing to me until the day you send it to the editors.”

“And in one month, even if it goes well, do I have the option of backing out if I feel like it’s too much to handle with all of my work from the University?”

“You do.” Beelzebub nods. “But I will tell you now that I will work very hard with Gabriel to find a solution if this goes the way I think it will. Adding this content is a very big part of my plans for this website and  _ you _ are the one I want to write it. I’m not going to give up on that very easily.”

“I’m sure there are other people who are just as qualified—  _ more _ qualified even!” There’s a nagging voice in the back of Aziraphale’s mind that he doesn’t like.

The offer sounds— well, frankly it sounds lovely. Not only is it a break from Gabriel— something that could’ve gotten Aziraphale to agree to almost anything, honestly— but it’s also the freedom to write anything he wants with only a deadline. Even when he chooses to write for the local paper, he has strict guidelines on topics he’s allowed to write within. This is the first time anyone has ever given him the permission to write absolutely anything he wants. 

In fact, Aziraphale thinks he would take the offer if the situation were different. But as it stands, the situation  _ isn’t _ different. He’s sitting in Beelzebub’s office, lying to them about his personal life. If he were to accept the offer, to work for Beelzebub and  _ Hellfire _ — even if only for the single month— he would have to continue lying every single day. If he ever came into the office, he’d have to act friendly with Crowley— in love, even. The way husbands acted, not that Aziraphale actually had much experience with that. If he accepted the offer, he’d be embedding the final nail in their coffin and dooming both of them another month of this incredibly awkward, uneasy situation.

Besides the fact that playing house with Crowley for another month was simply unappealing, it would also be a lot of  _ work _ . The odds of one of them slipping up was high— far higher than they should be if they wanted to make it out without ruining their facade. They would have to actually get to know each other, to craft a story together and stick to it. They would have to  _ prepare _ and that alone would take up all the time Gabriel normally occupied. It wouldn’t be getting a break from his current job, it would simply be replacing it with a new one: Crowley. 

And yes, alright, it was true that Crowley was  _ marginally _ less irritating than Gabriel but only marginally. And at this point, Gabriel was the evil Aziraphale knew, Crowley was an entirely unknown wildcard that had the potential to be far more disastrous to his life than Gabriel could ever be.

In fact, in the span of the last forty-eight hours, Crowley  _ had _ been more disastrous to his life than anyone else. 

“I’ve read your work, Aziraphale. You’re very matter-of-fact, very straightforward. You present facts without any hesitation. It’s a stark contrast not only to the others in your field, but to our website in particular.” Aziraphale isn’t sure if he’s meant to be praised or scandalized by the comment, so he settles for biting his tongue and waiting for Beelzebub to finish before he decides. “And like I said earlier, I find you and Crowley to be very interesting contrasts of each other and I think that shows through in your writing. I think having both of your articles side-by-side will be a benefit to this website. So no, it can’t be anyone else. I want it to be  _ you _ , Aziraphale.”

“Well—”

Beelzebub cuts Aziraphale off. It isn’t rude, but it’s firm, in control. “It has to be  _ you _ . So tell me what I can do to make you say yes.”

* * *

Crowley had resumed the blank staring at his computer somewhere in the middle of his bickering with Hastur. Like usual, Hastur didn’t have anything new or interesting to say and so he’d stopped paying attention in the midst of one of Hastur’s sentences, turning his attention back to his computer. 

Now that he knew what Aziraphale’s decision had been, there was a chance that he’d be able to actually get some work done. As far as he could possibly tell, his job wasn’t in immediate danger anymore. He could only assume that Aziraphale was going to decline the job and the memory of Crowley’s husband would fade away with time. It was the most painless option and he thanked his lucky stars that Aziraphale not only thought of it but was also willing to do it. 

However, instead of focusing on his article, all he could do was wonder  _ why _ . What had changed Aziraphale’s mind? He’d been steadfastly and staunchly against it when Crowley had suggested it yesterday and Aziraphale wasn’t one to change his mind or admit that he had been wrong. Considering they hadn’t spoken for the remainder of the evening, Crowley couldn’t possibly fathom what had happened, what thought had found its way into Aziraphale’s mind and refused to leave. 

It was this question that Crowley dedicated all of his energy to, completely neglecting his article and his usual midday break of harassing Hastur in some way. It passes the time quickly, though, and before he knows it, Aziraphale is wandering his way back through the rows of desks, pausing at his and staring down at him with the strangest expression on his face.

“Darling,” Aziraphale says with as much manufactured warmth as he can manage. His eyebrows are pinched together, though, and he looks concerned.

“Angel.”

“Would you happen to be able to take a break from your—” Aziraphale glances at Crowley’s completely blank computer screen to his completely empty desk and then finally back to Crowley’s face, his expression changing to one of exasperation instead. “Very hard work to walk with me out to my car?”

The first words that jump to the tip of Crowley’s tongue are:  _ you have a car? _ Truth be told, he assumed that Aziraphale just walked most places he went. If his vintage exterior was anything to go by, Aziraphale didn’t even know cars  _ existed _ , let alone know how to drive one. And Crowley had certainly never seen him with a car any time in the past, not that he had been looking. 

“‘Course, Angel.” He says instead, because he absolutely cannot say the things that are on his mind, no matter how much he wants to. Certainly husbands know what their spouses drive and Hastur has made it blatantly clear that he’s looking for any slip up that Crowley might make. “Anything for you. Ready to go now?”

“I am.” 

Crowley draws himself up and his legs feel shaky underneath him. He can’t possibly imagine what Aziraphale is going to say to him when they make it outside and he honestly can’t guess, either. Judging by his expression when he first walked up, it’s bad news. But at this rate, Crowley doesn’t even know what is considered  _ bad _ news. Is bad news the idea that Beelzebub found out? Is it the fact that their lie went off like a hitch and Aziraphale is upset about it? He can’t tell which way is up anymore, and he feels completely off kilter as he turns to face the elevator, only realizing belatedly that married people would be far more affectionate than they were. And they were, after all, pretending to be married.

At least, he  _ assumes _ they’re still behaving as a married couple. Aziraphale had called him darling, after all.

With a deep breath and far more nerves than Crowley is used to feeling, he juts his elbow out towards Aziraphale, a clear invitation. Aziraphale glances up at him and Crowley is eternally grateful for his dark glasses that hide his wide eyes, and then he’s sliding his hand through Crowley’s elbow and resting it on his forearm, the warmth seeping through Crowley’s jacket sleeve and into his arm. 

They take off towards the elevator together, their arms intertwined and their steps perfectly in sync despite their height difference and Crowley feels like he’s living in some sort of elaborate dream world. His entire arm tingles with Aziraphale’s touch and Crowley can’t stop thinking about how this is the closest they have ever been. Aziraphale nods and smiles at the faceless people they pass, playing the part of a dutiful husband far better than Crowley ever could. 

“How did it go?” Crowley turns his head to murmur to Aziraphale as they approach the elevator.

They pause in front of it and Aziraphale presses the button, his hand tightening around Crowley’s arm as he does so. Their backs are to the office but Crowley swears he can feel all of the gazes burning into them. “I’m afraid it went rather well, actually.”

“You’re  _ afraid  _ of that?” Crowley asks, his blood turning to ice in his veins. “What does that mean?”

“I’ll tell you outside,  _ darling _ .”

The elevator doors open up before them and together they step in, somehow managing to hold onto each other as they turn around to face the office and watch the doors close again. The moment the doors touch, Aziraphale and Crowley all but fly apart, jumping to opposite sides of the elevator and breaking their connection.

“Darling?” Crowley says incredulously, leaning his head back against the mirrored wall. It doesn’t provide him much relief considering that the goddam  _ ceiling  _ is mirrored, too, and he can still see Aziraphale, even though he isn’t looking at him. “ _ Darling? _ ”

“You called me  _ angel _ .” Aziraphale fired back and immediately Crowley could peg his mood. It wasn’t a good one.

“I always call you that.” Crowley retorts petulantly.

He can feel it building in the air between them— the usual tension, the fight that allows them both to relieve their frustrations. Already he’s thinking of things he can do, jabs he can take to get Aziraphale in the fighting spirit. Judging by the way he’s wringing his hands around the handles of his briefcase, Crowley doesn’t think he’ll have much resistance. 

The elevator reaches the bottom floor and opens up into the lobby. They spill out together, standing close enough together to keep up appearances— there’s no knowing who is watching— but not close enough to touch again. Crowley takes the lobby in six long strides and then he’s holding the door open for Aziraphale and trailing him out into the street. They make it a few steps down the sidewalk, just far enough away from the door to not be overheard if they speak in hushed tones when Aziraphale finally turns to him.

“I accepted the job.”

All of the things Crowley had been preparing to say, all of the argument starting statements flee from his mind immediately. “You  _ what _ ?”

“I accepted the job!” Aziraphale repeats, throwing one hand up in the air in exasperation. “It was a really good offer and it’s only for a month and I— I couldn’t say  _ no! _ ”

“‘Course you could have, are you mad?” Crowley steps all the way up to Aziraphale, reaching forward to clasp his shoulders as if he needs to feel Aziraphale to know that he’s actually there, that this is actually happening. Aziraphale doesn’t flinch away from the contact. “What the fuck are we supposed to do now? This was bad enough before but— but  _ now _ —”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do.” Aziraphale admits and for once, hearing that Aziraphale has no idea what he’s doing isn’t comforting to Crowley. It doesn’t fill him with that usual smug thrill, doesn’t vindicate him the way it would in any other situation. “We’ll have to work that out. It’s only a month, Crowley.”

“Only a month? Yesterday you were complaining when I asked you to lie for a single conversation, Aziraphale! A month is a hell of a lot more than a fucking conversation!”

“Watch your language,  _ darling _ .” Aziraphale warns but Crowley just blows it off, letting go of his shoulders and stepping away to give him a little bit of personal space back. 

“This is—” Crowley throws his hands around in the air in a series of gestures that have no exact point but they encompass how he feels anyways.

“I know.” Aziraphale murmurs, reaching out to catch one of his hands and stop the movement. “This was my mistake, I admit that.”

“I didn’t know you were capable of admitting flaws.” Crowley spits because it’s all he knows how to do.

Aziraphale doesn’t rise to the bait. “Just meet with me and we can figure it out, okay? I’d explain more but I have to go meet with Gabriel right now. And I’m sure you have some work to do, too.”

Crowley feels unsteady on his feet, like he’s floating vaguely through some sort of dream— some sort of  _ nightmare _ was more like it. If he had thought that he’d fucked up— and he  _ had _ — it was nothing compared to what Aziraphale was saying to him. Crowley didn’t even feel like the words coming out of Aziraphale’s mouth were  _ real _ . Perhaps Aziraphale was finally paying him back for all the times that Crowley had gone out of his way to irritate him.

In truth, he’d always known the retaliation was coming.

But in that same vein, he also knew that this wasn’t it. If—  _ when _ Aziraphale chose to get back at him, he wouldn’t do it in a way that impacted him, too. He would pick something that would no doubt ruin Crowley’s entire day while he would sit back on the sidelines and watch it all unfold with a cup of tea and a mocking smile on his face.

But oh, this wasn’t sitting on the sidelines. This had him tangled up right in the heart of it all, wrapped up with Crowley in the absolute chaos that they had somehow created. This wasn’t payback, this was just the worst thing to ever happen to Crowley.

“Work, sure, ‘course. I’ll just— I’ll go do that and pretend that this is a totally normal thing that happened.” Crowley grinds out, frustrated and furious. He needs something to channel his energy into, something that can handle the brunt of his mess of emotions. He has no idea what that could be. “Have a  _ fabulous _ meeting with that wanker.”

“Crowley, don’t behave like this.”

“How should I behave, then, angel?” Crowley shifts from foot to foot for lack of a better idea of how to handle himself in this moment. He’s a grown ass man but no point in his life has ever prepared him for the idea that his sort-of enemy would not only agree to pretend to be his husband but would also up the ante. No experience he’d ever had taught him the proper etiquette for this moment. Was there even proper etiquette for such a thing? Crowley didn’t fucking know or care. “What would you like me to do? What would be a reasonable response to this mess?”

“Just—” Aziraphale shakes his head and turns halfway away, his hand poised on the handle of his car door. “Just act normal. We can meet up and work it all out later, alright? We’re in this together, isn’t that what you wanted?”

“I wanted us to be in it together for  _ one _ conversation. Not one  _ month _ .”

In truth, Crowley isn’t sure why he’s so— mad? Shaken? He isn’t even sure what feeling is the strongest right now, he just knows that they’re all negative. It’s not like he’s adverse to lying and he figures that they can keep it up just fine. He’ll continue to insist that they’re private people, refuse to give much additional information and the whole thing will blow over. It’ll be a couple of awkward weeks, sure, but it's a better alternative to losing his job entirely. He should be  _ thanking _ Aziraphale for not outing his lie and agreeing to whatever it is Aziraphale needs.

Instead he feels jittery and vaguely sick. There’s a distinct feeling in his gut that this is about to go very, disastrously wrong. He isn’t sure how, but he can feel that it’s coming.

“I understand it’s not ideal.” Aziraphale says on the tail end of a sigh, his shoulders sagging. “I will figure something out. Just give me the time, alright?”

Crowley sucks in deep breath through his teeth, forces his ribs to expand, pushes the mixture of feelings down. No matter how he feels about this shit, the fact of the matter is that this is their situation now. He has no choice but to deal with it, really. And if they’re going to pull this off— and he’s damn well going to make sure that they do— they need to get along and to work together. So he has to take this rising hostility and store it away, it has no use here. 

“Alright, angel.” He grinds out after a moment, forcing out the breath he’d been holding. “We’ll work it out. One month can’t be that long, right?”

“To pretend to like you?” Aziraphale remarks but there’s a hint of relief in the teasing edge of his voice. “It’ll be the longest month of my life.”

Crowley lets out a begrudging laugh and shakes his head, glancing up above him. The windows to  _ Hellfire _ face this side of the street and even though Crowley can’t fathom any reason someone would be staring out of them right now, he can’t be sure that they  _ aren’t _ . And now, for the next month, the two of them are under supervision one hundred percent of the time. Everything they do has to indicate that they’re married— and happily so, which is the bigger joke.

“Good luck with your meeting.” Crowley murmurs, and then he pulls a page right out of Aziraphale’s book and leans in to press a kiss to Aziraphale’s cheek. The shocked expression he gets in response is more than enough to vindicate him. With a quirk of his lips, he raises his voice a little for show. “I’ll see you at home tonight, angel.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale says as Crowley starts to stalk back towards the building, hands in his pockets. “I’ll see you tonight, darling.”

* * *

Gabriel claps Aziraphale on the shoulder with enough force to knock him off his feet. The only reason Aziraphale is still standing is because he’d expected this and had, rather unfortunately, learned how to brace himself for it over the years. Gabriel’s smile has just as much strength behind it and Aziraphale suspects it would be blinding if it were at all genuine. 

“Taking the offer was the right choice, Aziraphale!” Gabriel booms, not bothering to leave any pauses for Aziraphale to potentially respond to anything he says. “We already have your name in classrooms but now you’ll be even more accessible than that! Everyone will be talking about you!”

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale manages to squeeze the name in the very brief moment of silence that comes with Gabriel taking a breath. It’s enough to get him to actually look at Aziraphale, maybe half of his attention dedicated to him. “If I may ask, why did you agree to this deal? I don’t see how giving me a month off helps you at all, if I’m being honest.” 

“How  _ doesn’t  _ this help us?” Gabriel’s voice is like thunder and then he laughs that fake laugh, the one that grates Aziraphale’s nerves and haunts his nightmares. “Getting your name more mainstream only means there will be  _ more  _ work for you in the future! More schools will want access to your articles, more people will seek out your work! Maybe then we can finally even branch out into book reviewing, like we’ve talked about! The audience will be there! Just imagine it, Aziraphale, all the new people who will be looking to see what you do next! Isn’t it amazing?”

It was not, in any way, amazing. In fact, it sounded like the opposite of what Aziraphale wanted. Most things Gabriel suggested did. In fact, he had never wanted to write literary analyses in the first place, it had simply gone hand in hand with his professorship. He taught many a literature class and therefore read more than his fair share of books. It was inevitable that he would critique them somewhat. It was also inevitable that he would start to notice some themes after reading the same stories so many times. 

Really, he hadn’t  _ meant  _ to get into the field of literature analysis. But Gabriel had always been breathing down his neck— the university did maintain publishing expectations of its senior professors. And so Aziraphale had written one—  _ one  _ analysis to publish simply to meet those requirements. And the article had, well, spread like wildfire. His colleagues both at his university and not, had read his article within days of it coming out and they had  _ loved _ it. It had led to many interesting and fulfilling conversations that were closely followed by the demand for more articles. 

Well, Gabriel had been the one to demand. His colleagues had simply shown their support and insisted they would love to hear more of his thoughts.

And so his career trajectory had shifted and he’d found himself publishing article after article at a brutal pace, barely able to fit them in between his teaching duties. Students from all over England— even some from other parts of the world!— switched to Tadfield University to study under Professor Fell. If literature was the subject of someone’s degree, studying under Professor Fell was a  _ must _ . Aziraphale had been flattered by the respect he had been given, but the pressure had started to become too much. 

He’d barely even managed to retire— in fact he hadn’t  _ actually _ retired, he’d just retired from lecturing. His deal with the university extended quite a few more years but he had been able to shift his workload to only writing his papers and occasionally mentoring the staff that had taken over in his place. Of course, this meant that his papers were expected at an even more breakneck pace but somehow he seemed to be managing. 

“Amazing.” Aziraphale echoed hollowly, not feeling great about it at all. “Yes, lovely that more people will be reading my work.”

What Gabriel didn’t say— partially because it was rather gauche to discuss and partially because Aziraphale already knew so there was no point in putting it into words— was that the university would make a lot of money off of this. All articles he published were through the university so they got exclusive rights— and a lot of royalties. Increasing readership and making him more mainstream would be a major payday for the university and  _ that  _ was the real reason Gabriel had agreed to the deal. 

“When do you start?” Gabriel asked, completely brushing over Aziraphale’s discomfort. Aziraphale was never certain if Gabriel just didn’t see his discomfort or if he didn’t care. He wasn’t sure which would bother him more so he never asked. 

Aziraphale smooths his hands down the front of his jacket for something to do with this jittery energy. “Immediately.”

“I thought that Bee— what was it?”

“Beelzebub.”

“Right, Beelzebub. I thought that they’d try to get you on board right away. I already put a call in to delay your next article. We’ll meet once you’re done with Beelzebub and talk about a timeline. Sound good?”

It was, in fact, the  _ only  _ thing that sounded good so far. Well, no, working for Beelzebub sounded good, too, if it didn’t have the string of a fake marriage attached to it. As it were, Aziraphale found himself staring into an uncertain future with more than one thing that was wildly out of his comfort zone just waiting for him. He would need to plan, it would be the only way he could get through this next month. 

“Sounds lovely, yes.”

“Oh come on,” Gabriel clapped Aziraphale on the shoulder a second time and it took all the control Aziraphale had to not wince in response to it. “Don’t look so glum! This is going to launch your career!” 

Yes, Aziraphale thinks bitterly, that’s exactly what he’s afraid of. 

“Of course.”

“Oh, and Aziraphale?” The hand on his shoulder tightens just marginally but it’s enough to root Aziraphale to his spot. “Next time you come back, why don’t you bring that husband of yours with you? If I had known who he was, we could’ve made this deal a long time ago.”

“My husband, of course.” Aziraphale says automatically, his brain five steps behind. Some sense of self preservation kicks in though, winding him up and setting him loose on autopilot. “We’re rather private people, that’s all. I’m sure he would be happy to attend our next meeting, however.” 

Just chalk it up to another piece of terrible news Aziraphale is going to have to break to Crowley. Crowley may have started this mess but by now it was a disaster entirely of Aziraphale’s own making and he had nobody to blame but himself anymore. 

“Can’t wait to meet him.” Gabriel’s fake smile is back as he finally withdraws his hand. “I’m sure he’s a great guy.”

If he goes along with this lie, Aziraphale laments internally, he’s  _ the best _ guy ever. This is officially asking Crowley for far more than Crowley asked of him. If Crowley laughed in his face and walked out of their meeting again, Aziraphale couldn’t blame him. 

The only way to find out, he supposes, is to try. He thanks Gabriel for his time and takes his leave, pulling out his phone and dialing Crowley’s number as he approaches the car. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I s’pose,” Aziraphale speaks slowly, enunciating each syllable as he talks, as if Crowley might somehow misunderstand him if he speaks with any more speed than this. “We do what married people do.” 
> 
> It’s vague and entirely unhelpful but it still drags a bitter half-laugh from Crowley’s throat. “What married people do?” Aziraphale nods in agreement with his own statement, taking a long sip of his wine. “Married people _touch_ , angel. Hold hands, kiss, all that stuff.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 12:02am as I type this so I finally manage to actually update on a Wednesday!! Major shoutout this chapter to Bianca ( [hanap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/pseuds/hanap) ) for talking me off the ledge when I showed up in her inbox this evening panicking that this chapter was not good enough to post. I need people more reasonable than me in my life to keep me sane!
> 
> This chapter is a lot of fun, I think, and there's a few lines in there that I make myself laugh with so I hope you guys enjoy it!! We're getting closer to the parts of this fic that I really want to write :)
> 
> As always, feel free to find me on [tumblr](https://jenanigans1207.tumblr.com/) where you can come scream to me or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ineffably_jen) where you can scream to me or probably see snippets of upcoming chapters because I don't have self control and am incapable of holding onto my favorite scenes for weeks at a time. 
> 
> I know I'm behind on replying to comments. I'm really overwhelmed by how kind you guys are and I want to give each comment an appropriate response but I honestly don't know what to say to convey my massive amounts of gratitude?? So I will catch up on them in the next few days, I swear, but please know that I have read them all (more than once) and that they mean the absolute world to me!

“I’m not  _ interviewing _ him!”

“You kind of  _ are _ , though!”

“No, I’m— I’m building a life with him.”

The way Anathema laughs is downright offensive. 

Crowley throws a piece of biscuit at her. “Not literally, obviously, but we’re— well, we’re in a huge fucking mess, that’s what.”

“I’ll say.” Anathema agrees as she works on the chalkboard sign she puts outside her shop each morning. It’s one of the small touches that makes her cafe so popular, especially because she decorates it from scratch every day. It’s nighttime now and the shop is meant to close soon, but Crowley knows Anathema has a busy morning tomorrow so she’s making tomorrow’s sign a day early. “I still can’t believe this happened.”

“ _ You _ can’t believe it?” Crowley tries to look affronted. It doesn’t matter, Anathema doesn’t bother looking up at him anyways. Plus, she already knows that he’s blown away by the entire thing— it would be impossible  _ not _ to be. “How do you think  _ I  _ feel?”

“Well I was actually under the impression that you didn’t have feelings.” Anathema flourishes a piece of chalk across the board, finishing some doodle in the corner of it. She looks up at him and smiles, part mocking, part genuine. 

“I  _ don’t _ .”

“Then what’s it matter how you feel?” She teases, and Crowley hates her a lot in that exact moment. “If you have no feelings, there’s nothing about it that should bother you.”

Crowley sneers at her and takes a bite of his biscuit, purposely talking before he finishes chewing. “Regardless of the status of my  _ supposed _ feelings, we’re just getting our story straight. No need to go in with a list of questions.”

Anathema snickers to herself, looking awfully pleased for the situation at hand. “What if you forget to ask something? What if you don’t anticipate everyone’s questions? Like, oh—“ Anathema’s eyes grow wide behind her glasses. “What if someone asks—“

“Then we’ll  _ lie _ , Ana. We’re already doing enough of it.” Crowley cuts her off smoothly, a practiced art that he has honed over the years. “We’ll make something up on the spot. That’s what we’ve been doing the entire damn time.”

Anathema has a tendency to run on… and on… and on. She manages to jump three topics to the left before Crowley even realizes it and by the time he mentally catches up, she’s already left him behind again. He’s learned how to figure out when she’s trending that way, though, and is getting better at stopping her before she can get too far ahead of herself and certainly too far ahead of Crowley. 

“The  _ entire damn time _ ,” She lowers her voice in a mock of Crowley as she repeats his words and Crowley briefly considers throwing more of his biscuit at her. He doesn’t, but only because it didn’t deter her the first time so there’s no reason to waste more of a perfectly good biscuit. “Has been, what, like three days? You act like this has been dragging on for weeks.”

“It  _ feels _ like it’s been dragging on. I must’ve aged thirty years when Aziraphale referred to me as his husband to Beelzebub.”

“If you’d aged thirty years, you’d be dead.”

“I’m not  _ that _ old!” Crowley protests, swiping Anathema’s cup of tea and pulling it to his side of the booth so that it’s out of her reach in response. “For fuck’s sake, Ana, you’re supposed to be my  _ friend _ .”

“I am!” She reaches across the table for her tea only to have Crowley smack her hand away. She tries not to smile but there’s a wry twist to the corner of her mouth that Crowley doesn’t miss. “And as your friend, I’m trying to help you be properly prepared.”

“ _ No _ , you’re trying to convince me to run twenty questions on Aziraphale.”

“I’m just saying that there’s a lot to consider.” She points at him purposefully with the piece of chalk. “There are endless questions that people could ask. You can’t possibly plan for all of them.”

“If we can’t plan for all of them,” Crowley quirks an eyebrow at her. “Then why are you insisting I make a list? By that logic the list won’t even matter because I’ll  _ still _ miss some.”

She sighs and crosses her arms, the chalk smearing across her black apron. She doesn’t notice, but it takes away some of the stern effect she’s clearly aiming for. “But you can hit the main ones, the ones that are likely to be asked by a lot of people.”

“If they’re that obvious, we’ll think of them  _ without  _ a list!” 

“Why do you hate lists so much?” She huffs, rolling her eyes. “You’re a journalist for heaven’s sake, you should be all about lists.”

Crowley does use lists in his career. He creates lists of questions that he asks the people he’s interviewing. Most would argue that it was for the exact reason Anathema was using— so he didn’t forget anything. Crowley would argue that it was so that he could get it over with faster, burning through the list and using it to stop people from getting too far off track. If someone started to ramble, Crowley could use the list to gently bump them back on track and cut off what would likely be a useless twenty minutes. On top of that, as soon as all the questions were crossed off the list— and he made a show of crossing them off in front of his subject so they knew— he could slip out of there without any arguments or delays. 

So yes, lists had their place in Crowley’s life. Their place just didn’t happen to be in a conversation with Aziraphale while they hashed out the details of their fake marriage.

More than anything else, a list like that would be incriminating instead of helpful. 

The bell above the door jingles and a smile spreads across Anathema’s face as she glances over Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley doesn’t need to follow her gaze to know who’d just walked in. Partially because he was meant to be meeting Aziraphale here— they had to plan, as Aziraphale had put it over the phone a few days ago— and partially because Anathema’s smile was far too smug for it to be anyone else.

“Aziraphale!” She greets warmly as Aziraphale pauses at the edge of their booth. Crowley and Anathema are seated on opposite sides of the booth, forcing Aziraphale to make a deliberate choice of where to sit. It hadn’t been intentional— Crowley had sat down at the booth on his own and Anathema had come to bother him on her own, sliding across from him for ease of conversation. 

Under normal circumstances, Crowley is absolutely certain that Aziraphale would already be seated next to Anathema, a warm hand on top of hers as he greeted her with equal joy, their smiles mirroring each other. But nothing was normal about their lives now and Aziraphale seemed to know that. He glanced between them two of them a few times, his hands wringing together in front of him with worry and discomfort. Crowley can see it written into every line of his expression, seeping into every gesture Aziraphale makes. There’s a pause that punctuates the air around them, waiting with baited breath for someone to make a decision and put all of them out of their misery. 

Crowley is the first to break the silence that seems to be growing more and more awkward by the second. He draws himself up into a more upright position and scoots closer to the window, glancing up at Aziraphale as he does so. The newly vacated spot should be message enough but he decides he should verbalize it just to be safe. Aziraphale had both a habit and a very defined skill of being purposely obtuse. 

“Angel,” He says evenly, gesturing to the spot next to him. “I saved this spot for my dear husband. Had to fight Anathema off for it, too.”

“Oh yes,” Anathema agrees. The absolute delight she feels at seeing the two of them together for the first time since their lie started is rolling off of her in palpable waves. “Things did get rather nasty.”

“You two are trouble.” Aziraphale says with a resigned sigh, but he slides into the booth next to Crowley anyways.

Well,  _ slides _ is a rather generous term, and far too casual for Aziraphale. The man is nothing if not proper at  _ all _ times and sliding would be beneath him, Crowley thinks. But Aziraphale  _ does _ take a seat and then gently scoot his body over in small increments so as not to jeopardize his perfect posture in the process. Crowley watches it happen, biting the inside of his cheek to maintain composure as Aziraphale finally comes to a stop next to him and settles in. He wiggles a little, getting comfortable in his seat, and his knee brushes against the outside of Crowley’s thigh.

“We would never cause trouble.” Anathema protests as she also watches the entire scene unfold. The sheer, unadulterated glee on her face is a stark contradiction to her statement though and Aziraphale looks at her with far too much concern. “Angels, the both of us.”

“You must think me a fool.” Aziraphale glowers at her from across the table.

“And me.” Crowley agrees, shifting a little to prop an elbow on the table and his head in his hand. 

He can still feel the press of Aziraphale’s knee and it’s far more distracting than he would’ve thought it could be. It wasn’t like he hadn’t touched other people before, there was no reason for his mind to be so focused on such a precise spot. Though, he realizes a bit belatedly, he hasn’t ever touched Aziraphale. Maybe a handshake when they first met, he honestly doesn’t remember, but certainly nothing since then. It’s just the newness of it, the strange turn of events, he tells himself firmly. 

“Oh please.” Anathema sets the chalkboard down next to her, leaning it against the booth so it doesn’t clatter to the ground. “ _ I _ am an angel.”

“You can be.” Aziraphale says diplomatically, like he’s meeting Anathema in the middle somehow. “When you’re on your own, perhaps. But Crowley cannot ever be considered an angel, with or without the influence of others.”

“Don’t want to be considered an angel.” Crowley points out, his mind circling back to the conversation at the mention of his name. 

His attention doesn’t stay on the conversation for long, especially when Aziraphale shifts again. His knee travels further down Crowley’s thigh as he moves and suddenly they’re even closer than they were before, pressed together practically from hip to knee. Aziraphale is warm next to Crowley and it takes everything in Crowley to hold steady in response to this shift, especially because he isn’t sure if his gut reaction is to scoot closer or further away. 

“Look at you.” Anathema continues to grin at them from across the table. “You’ve been married like three days and you’re already forming a united front.”

A series of things happen at once and Crowley isn’t sure which he feels first: Aziraphale freezing at his side or the heat that rises to his face. He glances away from Anathema and out the window, taking a moment to try and reign this ridiculous reaction back in. He’s a grown man that is in the middle of a stupid situation, he doesn’t need to make it worse by somehow being embarrassed by it. At this point, it’s hardly even his mess anymore. He’d gotten the snowball started but Aziraphale had been the one to run with it down the hill. If anyone were going to be embarrassed by the situation they were in, it should be Aziraphale. And in all fairness, he  _ did _ seem properly chagrined about it.

“Yes well—” Aziraphale snaps out of it and stirs next to Crowley, pulling away slightly. Crowley tries not to feel the cool air that rushes in the space between them now, tries not to shiver at the sudden change in temperature. More than that, he tries not to wish for Aziraphale’s leg back because that’s— well that’s just preposterous. This whole situation had gotten him backwards. “We need to  _ practice _ . That’s the whole point.”

It’s a feeble excuse and they all know it, especially Anathema who is looking at them with a knowing smile and a devious glint in her eyes. “Building a life, right?”

“Yes! Exactly! That’s what we’re doing.” Aziraphale nods emphatically— a bit  _ too _ emphatically for the moment and everything seems to shift further into awkward territory. “When I called Crowley to suggest it the other day, I had rather thought we’d get together sooner but our schedules didn’t quite align until now.”

“So it was  _ your _ idea to ‘build a life’ together?” The tone of her voice causes Crowley to finally look back at her, only to see that she’s staring rather intently at him in response. “That does make more sense. I had thought the wording was a bit too—”

“Watch it.” Crowley warns.

Anathema ignores him. “ _ Domestic _ to be something Crowley had come up with.”

Aziraphale laughs quietly next to him and a small amount of the tension seems to disappear. The weight of the moment seems to lighten just the tiniest bit and Crowley feels like he can breathe a little easier. “I’m perfectly capable of being domestic, thank you very much.”

“Are you?” Anathema goads and suddenly everything is back to being good natured and lighthearted and Crowley isn’t sure whether he or Aziraphale is more thankful for it. Crowley doesn’t want to admit that Anathema is doing it for them, taking pity on them, but he knows that she is and he certainly knows that there are a lot more questions in his future. “Is that so? Do you even have any furniture in your flat?”

“What idiot doesn’t have furniture in their flat?” Crowley finally pulls his head back out of his palm and leans back against the booth. “You’ve been to my flat, you’ve seen my furniture.”

Crowley knows that there’s more that Anathema wants to say on the matter— she loves teasing Crowley about how barren his flat is. And it is, just as blank as his desk at work. Besides the necessary furniture, there isn’t much in his flat and certainly nothing that would qualify as a decoration. Domestic really wasn’t a word that could be used to describe Crowley and he was perfectly content with that matter. If Crowley were to really examine it— and he absolutely wasn’t going to, not now or ever— he would know that his refusal to have personal touches wasn’t because he didn’t care about them but more because he was unwilling to put roots down anywhere. But that is a bottomless pit that he stores away in the depths of his heart and pretends isn’t there with far more determination and conviction than he affords anything else in his life. 

Aziraphale cuts in before Crowley can dive too far down that rabbit hole and he snaps all of his attention to the man to his right just to try and drag himself out of the bottom of that well. “I’ve never seen the inside of your flat. Or the outside of it, really.”

“What a terrible husband!” Anathema cries dramatically, throwing a hand over her heart. “locking your husband out like that.”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Crowley asks, aiming for Anathema’s foot under the table. He misses and his foot collides with the leg of the table and the whole thing shakes. It doesn’t hurt, but it does get his point across. Anathema cackles. “Go bother someone else.” 

“It’s my shop.” Anathema reminds him unnecessarily, as if he could have possibly forgotten. She draws her legs up and tucks them under her long skirts as if to make a point. “I can do whatever I want.”

“That clearly includes being a pain in the ass.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale chides.

Just like every other time Crowley has thrown an insult at her, Anathema is completely unaffected. She seems to be the only person he knows who does not rise to his challenges and refuses to get annoyed with him. No matter how much he tries to push her buttons, she gets nothing but fond amusement out of the things he does and endures them like they aren’t even inconvenient. Sometimes Crowley wonders if this is how Aziraphale feels about him given that he tries to meet every one of Aziraphale’s moods with nothing but an even amount of low grade amusement and a distinct lack of annoyance.

If it is how Aziraphale feels about him, Crowley understands why Aziraphale hates him. He hates Anathema at this exact moment.

Anathema watches him steadily, her smile firmly in place because she absolutely knows what she’s doing and how she’s riling him up. He absolutely cannot let her get the upper hand— not now or ever.

So, he turns his attention back to Aziraphale. In fact, he turns his whole body towards Aziraphale in an attempt to shut Anathema out of the conversation and the result is that his knee is now the one pressed into Aziraphale’s thigh. It’s soft, but not as soft as he would’ve imagined it to be. If he ever spent time imagining things like the softness of Aziraphale’s thighs. Which he didn’t. “You’re welcome to come by my flat if you’d like, angel. It’s nothing spectacular but it’s not a secret, either.”

Aziraphale looks back at him and the light catches his hair in such a unique way that for a moment his blond curls turn gold and he looks like he has a halo floating above his head. Crowley blinks a few times behind his sunglasses and the image leaves but he can’t seem to shake the feeling that comes with it.

“You wouldn’t mind?” Aziraphale asks after a moment of consideration.

“‘Course not.” Crowley raises one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “What’s mine is yours. Isn’t that the whole point?”

“We’re not  _ actually married _ , Crowley.” Aziraphale frowns.

“Not yet.” Anathema chimes in from across the table and Crowley swivels to kick the bottom of the booth just to make a point. 

The bell above the door jingles again and Anathema nearly jumps out of her seat as her eyes land on Newt as he walks in the door. She scoots all the way to the edge of the booth and gestures vividly for Newt to come join them, completely forgetting the topic at hand and Crowley’s attempted attack on her shins. Aziraphale greets him kindly as he approaches and Crowley gives him a nod in acknowledgement. Besides the fact that Newt was, in fact, an absolute terror to all things technological, he wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, Crowley had been the one to introduce Newt to Anathema.

He’d told Anathema that he was doing it just because he— and his computer— needed a break but the truth was that he’d known that they would get along. There was something about Newt’s quiet, nerdy personality that was just screaming for someone like Anathema. 

“Come, sit.” Anathema scoots back into the booth, making room for Newt on the other half. “We can have a double date.”

“Double date?” Newt smiles as he takes the aforementioned seat, his legs staying strictly in Crowley’s kicking range. Crowley doesn’t know Newt the way he knows Anathema but he’s not above kicking the guy to make a point if he has to. In fact, he thinks kicking Newt might even be a more effective way to get revenge on Anathema. “You two are finally—?”

Anathema slams a hand down on one of Newt’s thighs and, judging by the way he nearly jumps out of his seat, squeezes relatively hard. Whatever the end of Newt’s sentence was going to be hangs unspoken in the air between the four of them and Crowley can think of a few possible endings. He doesn’t like any of them.

Aziraphale, for all his brains and wit, apparently can’t think of any possible endings. Or perhaps he doesn’t like any of the ones that immediately come to his mind and is hoping that Newt will say something different. “Finally what?”

“Finally— finally—” Newt looks at Anathema with wide eyes, clearly certain that he had misstepped somehow.

Anathema leans forward before Newt has a chance to scramble for some ridiculous ending to that sentence. “Weren’t you going to take Aziraphale to your flat? You guys were just about to leave.”

“Were we?” Aziraphale asks, turning his blue gaze on Crowley. Crowley, for his part, glares determinedly at Anathema and she at least looks a little embarrassed. It takes a moment before Aziraphale seems to catch up to the moment and he lets out a quiet noise of understanding. “Of course, right. We absolutely were just about to go. Crowley, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Aziraphale moves just as deliberately to the end of the booth as he had when he’d first sat down and then stands up, straightening his jacket as he waits for Crowley to follow. It takes Crowley a moment before he finally scoots to the end and draws himself up, shoving his hands in his pockets the moment he’s upright. “Sure thing. Let’s go, angel.”

“It was lovely to see both of you.” Aziraphale waves as he trails Crowley to the door. 

Crowley holds the door open for Aziraphale who murmurs a quiet appreciation as he steps out onto the sidewalk before them. Crowley follows, allows the door to shut behind them with a bit too much force and feels a little bit better when he hears the clatter that comes with it. Then, he gestures to a car parked a few spots away.

“I can drive us there, if you’re agreeable.” Crowley offers.

Aziraphale eyes the car a little wistfully and Crowley can’t help but feel a swell of pride. The Bentley is absolutely gorgeous and deserves all the appreciative looks that she gets. She is perhaps the only thing that Crowley owns and actually cares about.

“That would be lovely.” Aziraphale says and he takes off towards her.

* * *

It was, in fact, not lovely to ride in the car with Crowley.

If Aziraphale thought Crowley defied the laws of gravity on a usual basis with his normal sitting positions, it was nothing compared to how he seemed to break the laws of gravity  _ and _ physics with his driving. He took a few turns so sharp that Aziraphale was utterly certain that at least two of the wheels lifted off of the ground entirely and yet somehow they never crashed. Aziraphale’s knuckles were white on the door handle when they finally pulled into a parking spot and Crowley cut the engine.

“My dear boy,” Aziraphale breathed, thankful that he could get in a breath at all. “What on Earth has the road done to make you punish it like that?”

“Punish it?” Crowley’s grin is wide and lopsided as he throws his long legs out the door. “That wasn’t punishment, angel. That was a  _ thrill _ .”

“Certainly not one I’d like to repeat.” Aziraphale snarks as he climbs out of the car himself. 

Crowley pauses in the middle of fumbling with his keys, glancing up at Aziraphale as he slots the correct key in between two fingers, the rest dangling from his hand. “So you’re walking home, then?”

Aziraphale bristles at Crowley’s smirk. “That’s not what I said.”

“Well, I assure you that I won’t be driving any differently, angel. So if you’re not looking for a repeat performance, you’ll be needing a different way home.” Crowley turns back to the door in front of him and slides the key into the lock, twisting it with an expert hand and yanking the door open while the key is still embedded inside. 

He props the door open with his foot, gesturing for Aziraphale to head inside while he jiggles the key to get it back out. Aziraphale squares his shoulders and breezes by Crowley, making a point to not thank him for holding the door open. If Crowley notices, he doesn’t say anything and doesn’t react at all and Aziraphale doesn’t know how he feels about it. As a general rule, he abhors being rude— it’s the only reason he continues to put up with Gabriel. For the life of him, Aziraphale cannot think of a way to express his feelings to Gabriel without being flat out rude and potentially even a little cruel. 

For the most part, Aziraphale tries to be polite to Crowley but Crowley makes it so hard. He needles his way under Aziraphale’s skin and unravels his carefully crafted defenses with just the smug tilt of his lips. And there’s this thing he does with his eyebrows, he raises one of them _ just so _ and all thought seems to flee from Aziraphale’s mind. 

He’s dedicated some thought to it, of course, and suspects that he very well may behave the way he does around Crowley because Crowley lets him get away with it. Nobody else would tolerate Aziraphale’s attitude the way. Fowler does, but then again nobody else requires that kind of attitude to keep them at bay. But Crowley takes a mile when he isn’t even given an inch and Aziraphale has no other choice. He’s certain of it. 

“Elevator’s that way.” Crowley steps up next to Aziraphale and gestures with a jut of the chin, his hands now firmly in both of his pockets. 

One of the first things Aziraphale noticed about Crowley was the way he always did that— hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, like he was trying to shrink or take up less space. It was very rare that Aziraphale ever saw him actually take up space, spreading out and commanding an area for himself. And those few times that Aziraphale had seen Crowley like that— well, he’d been rather striking, truth be told. 

“This lobby is lovely.” Aziraphale falls back into the safety net of small talk for lack of a better idea of what to say. 

When Crowley had first suggested that Aziraphale come to his house, the magnitude of it hadn’t really hit. It was completely reasonable, Aziraphale reminded himself. If they were going to pretend to be husbands, they had to get comfortable around each other and the really obvious barriers needed to come down. Anathema had been right, only a terrible husband wouldn’t know where his other half lived. In fact, it would be assumed that they lived  _ together _ so the idea of having never even  _ seen _ each other’s homes was something that was simply unacceptable.

But now, standing in the small elevator with Crowley, Aziraphale was starting to realize that this was serious. There was something  _ intimate _ about seeing someone’s personal space. Aziraphale was about to see the place where Crowley slept, where he ate his meals and wrote his articles. It was going to be the closest he ever got to seeing the true inner workings of Crowley and the first glimpse at what he might have inside of his heart. 

For all the years that Aziraphale had known Crowley, there had been a nagging voice in the back of his mind insisting that Crowley couldn’t possibly be as terrible as Aziraphale made him out to be. For all that Aziraphale snipped at him, pushed him away and argued with him, he never managed to successfully push Crowley away. The most he ever seemed to do was amuse Crowley and Aziraphale knew, somewhere in the shadowy depths of his heart, that there was something significant about that fact.

He refused to look in those shadowy corners, though, and clung onto his hatred for Crowley out of sheer stubbornness and fear of change. What they had— this not-friendship-but-not-quite-enemies relationship— worked for them. Or, well, it worked for Aziraphale. He couldn’t actually speak for how Crowley felt about it but he could assume, since Crowley never left, that he didn’t hate it  _ that _ much. 

Or perhaps Crowley was just a glutton for punishment and didn’t have  _ anyone _ better to spend his time with. 

“If you’re that nervous.” Crowley remarks and Aziraphale startles when he realizes that Crowley is and probably has been for a few moments, staring at him quite intently. “You can stay on the elevator and take it right back down when I get off. I’m not dragging you in, angel.”

“No, of course not.” Aziraphale replies, his distant mind wandering vaguely back in the direction of the moment at hand. “I’m not nervous, just thinking of all the things we need to talk about.”

“There’s more than one thing?” Crowley tilts his head down to meet Aziraphale’s gaze directly over the edge of his sunglasses and there’s something about the moment that makes the warm gold of his gaze so much more intense. Aziraphale feels like he’s melting under the weight of it. 

“Well, I wouldn’t say  _ more _ .” Aziraphale hedges as the elevator dings and the doors slide open. “But rather different  _ aspects _ of this one situation.”

“You’re not making it sound any better.” Crowley takes off down the hall, just barely glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Aziraphale is coming with him.

He is, although a little reluctantly. Aziraphale clasps his hands behind his back in an attempt to steady himself. “I don’t think it’s necessarily something to worry about…”

Crowley stops in front of a door and turns to look at Aziraphale, propping his shoulder against the door and reaching up to pull his sunglasses off all together so that he can really look at Aziraphale. Briefly Aziraphale wishes that he’d kept the glasses on because his eyes are gorgeous, yes, but they also have the funny effect of making Aziraphale’s throat go dry. Must be the nerves, he tells himself definitively. 

“Out with it, Aziraphale.” 

Aziraphale takes in a deep breath and decides that just spitting it out is probably the best way to handle it. He’s going to have to tell Crowley eventually anyways. “So before Beelzebub met us in Anathema’s shop, they had tried to reach me by talking to Gabriel.” Aziraphale watches as Crowley’s gaze grows suspicious and he can’t blame him. With Crowley being the only person Aziraphale talks to honestly about Gabriel, Crowley knows how Gabriel is and very reasonably understands that Gabriel’s involvement in their lie is not a good thing. “They must have worked out a deal after asking you to offer me the job because, well— Beelzebub told Gabriel about my husband and now he— he wants to meet you.”

“Christ, angel.” Crowley groans low, tilting his head sideways against the door and pinching his eyes shut. “What’s next? Are you going to take me home to meet your mother?”

“Hardly. My mother doesn’t live anywhere near—”

“I was  _ kidding _ , Aziraphale.”

“Yes, I know.”

They stand in silence for a long moment, Crowley’s bare gaze scrutinizing Aziraphale. He does his best not to buckle under the weight of it but the longer the silence stretches on, the harder it becomes. Finally Crowley sighs, his free shoulder slumping. He pushes off the door, runs a hand through his hair and turns around to slide the key into the lock. Aziraphale stares, transfixed, at the one piece of hair that had come out of Crowley’s perfectly tousled style and was now brave enough to be curling over his forehead. It only takes a moment before Crowley throws the door open and turns back to Aziraphale, forcing him to look away.

“I’ve got some good wine in my kitchen. I say we get very,  _ very _ drunk and just hash this entire thing out.”

“A glass of wine does sound nice.” Aziraphale crosses the threshold first, pausing while Crowley shuts and locks the door.

His immediate impression of the flat is that it’s very sleek and modern, beautiful but cold. It’s all sleek lines that create a sort of fluid feeling, leading them deeper into the flat. The dark colors are expected— Crowley’s entire wardrobe is essentially black, anyways. Overall the flat seems very Crowley and yet nothing like Aziraphale expected it to be. To him, homes are places that gather knick knacks and dust, places that tell stories and hold memories and Crowley’s flat— it doesn’t do any of that. Aziraphale can’t even imagine what kind of memories there’d be here. He isn’t even sure if  _ anything _ has happened in this flat besides sleeping.

“A glass?” Crowley leads the way down the hallway and Aziraphale trails at his heels, both of them having kicked off their shoes just inside the door. “Or a whole bottle?”

“That depends.” They wander past a living room that is far too tidy to be lived in and move into a meticulous kitchen. It’s beautiful and modern, straight out of a magazine and Aziraphale doubts a meal has ever been cooked in it. 

“On?”

“How good the wine is.”

“Oh angel.” Crowley tosses his sunglasses on the counter and heads towards a door that Aziraphale can only assume leads to a pantry. “Are you doubting my taste?”

“Well—”

“I married you, didn’t I? I must have impeccable taste.”

Crowley disappears behind the door with a sharp grin on his lips before Aziraphale gets a chance to chastise him. 

* * *

It’s somewhere around two hours and two bottles of wine later when Crowley and Aziraphale finally get around to broaching the topic they’re actually meant to be talking about. They had veered quite easily into the philosophical discussions that Crowley felt he couldn’t have with anyone else and then along the way had somehow taken a detour to discuss all the best restaurants in the city. That part of the conversation was dominated by Aziraphale but Crowley was happy to listen and take notes of all the places Aziraphale liked. 

For research purposes, of course. 

If research could be considered the right word for it. 

Regardless, if he was to be a doting, besotted husband, he needed to know things like his husband's favorite meals, his opinion on Shakespeare plays and whether or not he believed in God. Admittedly those were some of the more obscure topics and he didn’t anticipate having to draw out any of this knowledge but it didn’t change the fact that he had it. And honestly, having this knowledge couldn’t possibly  _ hurt _ their case, so he listened diligently all the while, making mental notes through the hazy fog of his brain. 

Finally, though, he poured the last of the second bottle into Aziraphale’s glass and fumbled his way back to his seat, knowing that they had to talk about the problem at hand soon or else they’d be too far gone to get anything done. That was the thing about drinking to help tolerate an awkward situation— there was a certain level that was helpful and anything past that was too much and distinctly unhelpful. 

“Alright,” he said as he flopped back onto his barstool, teetering for a moment before gaining enough balance to not fall off the other side and end up a jumble of angular limbs on the ground. “How are we going to do this?”

“Do what?” Aziraphale asks. His face is flushed and he’s smiling the sort of far-off, wistful smile that came with the right amount of drunk. He was looking at Crowley but perhaps not actually  _ seeing  _ Crowley. 

“Y’know,” Crowley waves a lazy hand in between the two of them, gesturing at each of them in turn. “Be married.” 

A strange look crosses Aziraphale’s face, like he can’t quite place what Crowley’s asking him. His eyebrows knit together and he scrunches up his nose in thought, eyes drifting even further away. It’s equally adorable and funny and Crowley laughs, trying to prop his arm on the counter and missing, nearly whacking his head instead. 

The fuss Crowley creates in a desperate attempt to avoid a concussion seems to draw Aziraphale’s attention back and he reaches out automatically to steady Crowley as he shifts yet again on his very narrow stool. In hindsight, he should’ve gotten sturdier furniture. But the truth is that this is the first time Crowley has sat on these stools for more than ten minutes and certainly the first time he’s done it drunk. Never in his wildest imagination could he have conjured up a scenario similar to this one so honestly he can’t be blamed for the impracticality of his furniture because he’d never anticipated it needed to stand up to a situation like this. 

“I s’pose,” Aziraphale speaks slowly, enunciating each syllable as he talks, as if Crowley might somehow misunderstand him if he speaks with any more speed than this. “We do what married people do.” 

It’s vague and entirely unhelpful but it still drags a bitter half-laugh from Crowley’s throat. “What married people do?” Aziraphale nods in agreement with his own statement, taking a long sip of his wine. “Married people  _ touch _ , angel. Hold hands, kiss, all that stuff.” 

There’s a moment of silence that might be awkward if either of them were sober but given the situation Crowley doesn’t feel particularly uncomfortable while he waits for whatever Aziraphale is going to say in response to that. He sips at his own wine, nearing the bottom of his glass and considers drawing out another bottle. He could— he certainly has more— but that moves into the dangerous territory. Not to mention that Aziraphale has to make it home eventually. He tells himself to simply slow down and savor the last few sips and to just conquer whatever comes next with this level of buzz. 

“Then we do those things.” Aziraphale finally says, like it’s obvious and he’s not sure why they’re even having this conversation. “If that’s what married people do and we are pretending to be married— that’s what we have to do!”

“We can’t just—“ Words try to escape Crowley, hiding in the fog of his mind as he reaches for them. “Go ‘round  _ kissing _ .”

“Whyever not?”

“Well, ‘cause we’ve never done it before.” Crowley leans forward, something in him suggesting that he needs to be close to Aziraphale to make his point. “They’d know.”

“Who would know?”

“ _ They _ would.”

“But who are  _ they _ ?”

“Everyone!” Crowley exclaims as he shoots to his feet. “The whole lot of them! They’d  _ know _ .”

Aziraphale ponders this with a great deal of concentration, setting his wine glass down on the counter as he watches Crowley pace back and forth before him. Crowley’s limbs feel light as he moves and it helps him handle the energy inside of him, it clears his mind enough for him to at least form sentences. He’s not certain they’re coherent sentences, but they are full thoughts to some extent and he can absolutely work with that.

“They  _ could _ know.” Aziraphale concedes after a moment. “First kisses can be rather obvious.” 

“That’s my point.” Crowley juts a finger towards Aziraphale triumphantly. “They would know. So we can’t just do that— can’t just go about having them  _ know _ . The whole point’s that they aren’t supposed to know!”

“But we have to do those things. We can’t just… not do them.” Aziraphale smooths his hands down his thighs as Crowley continues to move restlessly. “If we don’t do them, they’ll know.” 

“There’s only one option then.” Crowley finally stops right in front of Aziraphale, tall enough that he has to look down to meet Aziraphale’s hazy gaze while he’s sitting. “We gotta do those things now where they can’t see.”

“What?”

“Think about it!” The words burst out of Crowley with more force than he’d intended but he hardly notices. He rambles on, the words slipping past his lips without him even realizing what he’s saying. “We’re meant to be married for, what, two years? Three?”

“We haven’t decided—“

“Years though, yeah? We’re meant to be married for  _ years _ .”

“Yes. I Imagined it to be around three years also.”

“These things ought to be habit then!” Crowley throws his hands in the air triumphantly as he reaches his point, turning to make sure that Aziraphale also understands it. He doesn’t appear to, so Crowley elaborates further to get them on the same page. “People married for years do these things  _ all the time _ . It has to look  _ natural  _ or we’re both going to get it.”

“I suppose—“ Aziraphale is staring intently back at him, eyebrows drawn together again in thought. “I suppose you’re right. It wouldn’t be convincing otherwise.”

“Exactly!” Crowley returns to his seat next to Aziraphale, downing the last few sips of his wine in one gulp. “Exactly.”

Aziraphale smooths his hands down his legs a second time and then a third, chewing on his lip as he thinks about this new idea. Crowley already knew this was a nervous habit of Aziraphale’s but if he didn’t, he’d certainly be putting it together now. 

“How long?” He asks after a moment.

“How long what?”

“Will it take?” Aziraphale’s blue eyes are earnest as he looks at Crowley. “For it to seem natural, I mean.”

“Oh.” Crowley props his feet up on the bar at the bottom of his stool and crosses his arms over his knees. “Dunno. Depends, I s’pose. On how often we do it.”

“Well then, let’s do it.” Aziraphale extends one of his hands into the space between them, palm towards the ceiling. “Hold my hand.” 

The cloud that Crowley’s brain has become seems to shift slightly back into a solid state as he reaches for Aziraphale’s hand, sliding his fingers down Aziraphale’s and then across his palm, gently skimming the soft skin of his wrist. Aziraphale shudders across from him, his own fingers curling up to meet the touch. It feels like electricity and Crowley can feel his buzz starting to wane as he drags his hand back, tracing gentle patterns in the palm of Aziraphale’s hand. Aziraphale is watching intently, lips parted in wonder and Crowley reaches out with his second hand to cup Aziraphale’s hand between both of his. 

His skin is soft, so soft, and warm between Crowley’s hands. His touch is gentle as he wraps his fingers around one of Crowley’s wrists as if he’s grounding himself, holding on to assure himself that this is actually real. Something about the tenderness of it, the intimacy of the touch without any words being spoken cracks Crowley’s heart open and he can’t stop himself from leaning forward, drawing Aziraphale’s hand to him and pressing gentle kisses to the pads of each finger. It’s the alcohol, he tries to tell himself, he would never do this sober. Never even  _ consider  _ this sober.

But there’s something about the way Aziraphale’s skin feels under his lips that chases away any concern about  _ why _ . Alcohol or not, Crowley isn’t  _ mad  _ that this is happening. He can’t say for sure that the sober version of him will feel the same but that’s not a problem for right now. 

Aziraphale lets out a shaky breath that almost sounds like a sigh and tilts his hand to allow Crowley easier access. Crowley takes it, his less-drunk mind completely abandoning him as he kisses down Aziraphale’s palm and to the soft skin of his wrist. Aziraphale lets out a small noise at Crowley’s gentle kiss, his fingers curling up again except this time they brush against the edge of Crowley’s jaw, tangle in a few strands of Crowley’s shoulder length hair. 

He presses one last, lingering kiss to Aziraphale’s wrist, right over his pulse, before pulling away and looking up at Aziraphale, heart in his throat as he waits to get scolded. 

Aziraphale is staring back at him, lips still parted and eyes hooded as he breathes out a quiet “Darling.”

And then Crowley is standing from his chair completely and closing the gap between them. One hand threads his fingers through Aziraphale’s and squeezes while the other reaches out to cup his cheek and tilt his head back. Aziraphale goes willingly, his gaze intense on Crowley. And then—

And then it’s like gravity pulling him down, connecting his lips to Aziraphale’s. 

Their hand holding had felt like a lot when it had happened but now that Crowley was kissing Aziraphale, tasting his own wine on Aziraphale’s lips, he realizes that it had been nothing more than sputtering sparks before because this—  _ this  _ was electricity, jumping across his skin and jolting down his spine, shocking out any remaining buzz that he may have had. 

He’s so lost in the feeling of it, in the ease of it all, that he doesn’t realize right away that Aziraphale’s other hand has moved from gripping his shoulder to being anchored in the hair at the back of his neck. It’s not until he feels the gentle scratch against his scalp that he realizes it and he can’t suppress the full body shudder that comes in response to it. Aziraphale repeats the movement and kisses him again and Crowley wishes for a moment that he was sitting down so he didn't have to fear his knees buckling out from underneath him. 

He wouldn’t dare step back now, wouldn’t even  _ consider  _ backing away to sit down now. Everything outside of Aziraphale has ceased to exist for him, he doesn’t even know where his chair is anymore. Every nerve ending in his body is alight and all of them are screaming Aziraphale’s name. For a long moment, time seems to stand still and Crowley forgets that he needs to breathe. If the fervent way Aziraphale is kissing back is any indication, Crowley would wager that he had also forgotten about such needs. 

But, like everything else in Crowley’s life, it eventually catches up to him. 

Another languorous kiss later and they finally separate. Crowley staggers the few steps back to his chair—mercifully behind him because he was honestly just hoping— and drops down into it, his whole body feeling like it’s vibrating. 

“There.” He says slowly, blinking at Aziraphale as he tries to regain his surroundings— and tries  _ not  _ to notice the increased flush in Aziraphale’s face. “Now they won’t know. Good that— good that we got that over with.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale sounds equally dazed. He blinks a few times as if trying to reign his mind back in. “That was rather convincing. I do think we’ll fool them if we keep doing—  _ that _ .”

“Right. That. We’ll just— we’ll just keep doing that and they’ll have no idea.”

“Great. Yes.”

Distantly Crowley feels like he should be embarrassed or perhaps like he should apologize. But Aziraphale wasn’t biting his head off so he figured he should just leave it be. Better to move past it than to say something that would remind Aziraphale that he had every right to be mad about that. Even if they  _ had  _ talked about it, there was a difference between  _ talking about it  _ and actually  _ doing it _ . Plus, they had agreed it was something they  _ should  _ do but hadn’t made any plans for turning it into more than a hypothetical. Crowley had jumped the gun and unilaterally made that decision for the both of them. 

There was a small amount of the haze setting back in to Crowley’s mind but he honestly didn’t know if it was the alcohol or sheer shock at what he’d just done. If he had to guess, he’d say the latter because he still felt pretty firmly sober. Aziraphale’s gaze still seemed far off, telling Crowley that he was feeling a similar fuzziness in his head. All for the best, he figured, because this didn’t go anywhere at all close to how he had anticipated it.

Not that he regretted it. He—

Crowley shakes his head to try and clear it somewhat, to try and pull his train of thought back on track. This was a bigger disaster than he ever could have anticipated but it didn’t need to be. The truth was that husbands did do this sort of thing and it really should be habitual for them at this point in their marriage if they were, in fact, actually married. Plus, it wasn’t like a kiss was actually a big deal. People kissed strangers all the time— did  _ more _ than kiss strangers. A simple few kisses didn’t have to mean anything, didn’t have to be more than means to an end and in this case, that end was not losing their jobs. 

It didn’t have to be the kind of earth-shattering, life-altering thing that movies portrayed. So what if Crowley still felt like his fingertips were tingling? Alcohol could do that sometimes. 

“Right so—” Crowley pulls a leg up and tucks it on the stool in front of him, wrapping his arms around it and propping his head on his knee. He was starting to get a headache and he wasn’t sure if it was one of his normal migraines or a result of the drinking. “The other things. We need to sort those out.”

“Just vaguely.” Aziraphale replies, surprising Crowley. “It’s only a month and I have to be at the building only two days a week. There won’t be  _ that _ many opportunities for us to blow it. In fact, dare I say it, I think the, ah, physical comfort will be most important. You’ve avoided conversations about your husband for this long, I’m sure you can keep doing that. We just need to be able to sell it while we’re there together.”

“It certainly won’t be a chore to continue shutting Hastur out.” Crowley laughs at himself but Aziraphale looks unimpressed so he forges on. “Two days?” Crowley asks, trying to shift back onto the grounds of normal conversation. “Are you there all day?”

“I’m not sure.” Aziraphale answers mildly, allowing him to change the topic. “I suppose it depends on how long it takes to go through the article and figure out the logistics.”

“I see.” 

Aziraphale looks up at him, his gaze a little sharper than before. “What is it?”

Crowley stretches out a series of consonants that don’t sound even remotely like a word and tilts his head from side to side. “I mean, how serious are we taking this?”

“Well, I rather think that we are taking this quite seriously.” Aziraphale scrutinizes him and Crowley tries not to shift. “If we’re going to do this, we might as well do it right.”

“If that’s the case, we ought to drive to work together.” Crowley throws the idea out there casually, staring steadfastly at Aziraphale’s shoulder so that he doesn’t have to look into Aziraphale’s eyes. “Just on the days that you’re in the office.”

“You think?”

“Well, yeah—” Crowley’s words jumble together again but Aziraphale doesn’t even blink at it. “We’re likely meant to be living together. If we’re in on the same days it might seem—”

“Odd for us to arrive separately.” Aziraphale supplies and nods his head. “Yes I quite agree. That would raise some suspicions.”

“So then I’ll pick you up on those days?” Crowley offers and he can’t stop the smile that spreads at the look of horror on Aziraphale’s face.

“There must be—”

“You could drive?” Crowley prompts and his smile only grows as the look of horror increases on Aziraphale’s face. 

“I  _ do _ have a car.” Aziraphale glances around nervously, avoiding Crowley’s gaze. “Though I rather dislike driving it.”

“How about this then, angel.” Crowley sends him a crooked smile, his head still pounding from the growing headache and the waning alcohol. “We’ll make a compromise. You agree to ride with me and I’ll only drive fifteen over the speed limit.”

“That’s very generous of you.” Aziraphale says sourly, his mouth pinching together in a look of displeasure. “I suppose I have no choice but to accept.”

“I suppose so.”

By now both of their faces have settled back to a normal color, the flush of their kissing from earlier completely gone. If it weren’t for the faint tingling Crowley could still feel on his lips, he wouldn’t even believe that it had happened. And even though he logically knows that a kiss between two grown men doesn’t have to mean anything, he still finds it strange that Aziraphale is handling it so calmly. The only explanation possible is the alcohol— Crowley would’ve never done it without the alcohol and if somehow he had, Aziraphale would have surely torn him to shreds if he were sober. He clutches this explanation around him very tightly, refusing to scrutinize it too closely and repeating it to himself every time the kiss pops up in the front of his mind again which is surprisingly often. 

“Very well.” Aziraphale’s frown doesn’t lighten up as he finally meets Crowley’s gaze. “I am supposed to speak with Beelzebub tomorrow to decide which days I’ll be in the office. I’ll let you know once I have that information.”

“Great, yeah.” Crowley’s leg is falling asleep in this awkward position so he finally untangles himself to sit more upright. “Well, that’s two things sorted.”

“Three,” Aziraphale corrects. “We also agree that we’ve been married for three years.”

“Right. So, three out of… a lot, probably.”

“We should’ve made a list.” Aziraphale murmurs.

Crowley groans. “Do not  _ ever _ say that to Anathema. You hear me, angel?  _ Don’t _ do it.”

“Had more sense than you, did she?” Aziraphale’s face breaks out into a bit of a smug grin and Crowley sneers, standing from his seat and heading to the sink for a glass of water instead. He offers one to Aziraphale who takes it gratefully, glancing at his pocket watch as Crowley fills it up. “Good heaven, is that the time? I ought to be getting back home.”

Crowley glances at the clock on his microwave and realizes that is it later than he had anticipated, too. Certainly later than a normal social call would last and, if Crowley had to guess, later than Aziraphale’s bedtime. He doesn’t know that for sure, but he does suspect that Aziraphale is typically in bed by eight, lights out and a book propped open on the table next to him. 

“Oh, yeah. I can give you a lift if you’d like.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to trouble you like that.”

“No trouble at all, really.” Crowley drains the last of his glass of water. “You’ll have to get used to my driving eventually.”

“I hate when you’re right.” Aziraphale groans.

“Don’t I know it.” Crowley’s grin could be lethal. Aziraphale glances at him before rolling his eyes and turning away, sipping delicately at his water.

“I suppose we’ll have to figure out the rest of it some other time, then.” 

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Crowley says vaguely, not sure what exactly he’s applying his apology for and leaving it open to Aziraphale’s interpretation. It’s safer that way. “Got a bit… sidetracked there.”

“Quite alright.” Aziraphale says but his voice is a little tight and Crowley isn’t sure what to make of that. “The things we did get through were important. It didn’t have to all be done tonight.”

Crowley is surprised to hear Aziraphale concede something like that, confident that Aziraphale didn’t like to leave anything undecided if he could help it. He would take it, though and thank his lucky stars for it, too.

“Grab your coat, angel. I’ll get you home.”

* * *

True to his word, Crowley drives a somewhat more reasonable speed as Aziraphale directs him back to his own flat. For safety Aziraphale still keeps a hand locked tightly around the handle to the door but at least this time it feels like all of the wheels stay on the ground. He supposes it’s the most he can ask for so he doesn’t bother commenting on it. 

If Aziraphale hadn’t been starting to sober up himself before he’d left, he wouldn’t have allowed Crowley to drive him home, insisting that he call a cab instead. But after that, ah,  _ conversation _ , Aziraphale’s head had cleared pretty rapidly and he could tell that Crowley was experiencing the same thing. His eyes had become sharp and his smiles had become deliberate, contrasting the lazy smiles Crowley seemed to be unaware he was giving when drunk. 

It was quite a thing to see— Crowley drunk. Aziraphale hadn’t ever dedicated much thought to what Crowley would be like drunk but if anyone had prodded, he would’ve guessed that Crowley would be a loud drunk. People tended to be their opposite when drunk and sober Crowley was quiet and reserved, snarky but not particularly boisterous. Aziraphale wouldn’t have expected him to be dancing on tables drunk, but he would’ve thought that Crowley would be the person laughing loud, throwing their head back and exposing the long column of his neck, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

And, Aziraphale supposed, to some extent Crowley  _ was _ that person. He may not have been loud but he certainly was the center of attention— of Aziraphale’s attention, anyways. And he  _ had _ been more open, gracing Aziraphale with gentle laughs and unguarded eyes. It was the most forthcoming he had ever seen Crowley and he had— well he had rather enjoyed it. Their usual bickering didn’t have the same bite. Crowley seemed to lose his usual irritating edge, to let go of the notion that he had to needle Aziraphale at every turn and instead gave him room to speak uninterrupted.

He was also very smooth, although that could be said about him sober, too. It  _ wouldn’t _ be said about him sober because Aziraphale would  _ not _ admit that out loud, but Crowley always had a certain grace about him. To some extent, Aziraphale assumed it was manufactured, but it didn’t change the confidence and carefully crafted disinterest that Crowley carried around him in all aspects of life. 

“This is your stop.” Crowley maneuvers the car gently to the curb and puts it in park, turning to look at Aziraphale. Aziraphale gazes back at him through the dim light of the streetlamp they’re parked underneath and marvels at the way Crowley’s hair seems to catch the light like flames. 

“Thank you.” Aziraphale says after a moment, pulling his thoughts together enough to reply. He thinks there may have been a bit of an awkward pause in the middle there but Crowley doesn’t comment on it. “For the ride and for a nice evening.”

“Now who would’ve guessed,” Crowley grins lazily at him as he reaches for his own door handle, his sunglasses once again fixed to his face and hiding his eyes. “That you could actually find me enjoyable company.”

“I assure you, I’m more surprised than you are.” Aziraphale fires back as he finally climbs out of the car. “I wouldn’t get used to it, though. I’m sure tonight was some fluke and you’ll be back to your annoying self in no time.”

Crowley laughs and Aziraphale turns to see him standing on the sidewalk, arms crossed on the roof of the Bentley while he stares at Aziraphale. In the low light of the evening he looks striking— all angles and sharp corners that work even though they shouldn’t physically be able to. He is long and lanky and yet he looks like he belongs exactly where he is standing, like he is meant to be doing exactly what he is doing. Like he should be staring at Aziraphale, only Aziraphale, never anybody else.

“I think you might find me to be very surprising.” He says instead and Aziraphale fears that he may be right.

This evening was, in fact, rather charming. Crowley’s flat had grown on him after he’d been there for an hour or so and the interior didn’t seem quite so cold. It was true that there were no personal knick knacks but there was still a distinct sense Aziraphale got that the flat was lived in. Crowley moved around it with ease, reaching for things without really looking and Aziraphale could really see that he lived there, could imagine him first thing in the morning with his messy bed hair and his eyes half closed, brewing a pot of coffee as he stretched.

“I certainly hope not.” Aziraphale tries to shake the image from his head and it goes, only to be replaced by a different image.

“Whatever you say, angel.” Crowley withdraws his arms from the hood of the car and turns to watch Aziraphale as he makes his way around the front of the car and onto the sidewalk himself. “Just let me know after you talk to Beelzebub tomorrow, would you? We need to get that figured out and to see how much more time we have to plan.”

“Yes, of course I will.” Aziraphale pauses on the pavement a few paces away from Crowley. “Though I suspect you could just ask Beelzebub yourself if you were so inclined. I think husbands are entitled to that sort of information about each other.”

Crowley laughs and it’s not quite the kind of laugh that makes him throw his head back in mirth but it’s still something genuine and Aziraphale is glad to see it. If they can’t laugh about this entire situation, they aren’t going to be able to get through it. It’s going to be an awkward four weeks as it is, the least they can do is find some humor in it. 

“If you don’t mind, I’ll be continuing to avoid any unnecessary conversations with my superiors. Not really my thing.”

“I could pretend to be surprised.” Aziraphale quips. “If you like.”

Crowley huffs and tilts his head towards Aziraphale’s flat instead. “Go to bed, angel. First day of the rest of our lives tomorrow.”

“Very funny, Crowley.” 

“I mean it.” The corner of Crowley’s mouth tilts up in a lopsided smile. “Goodnight, dear husband. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Crowley turns and takes a step towards the Bentley again. He’s hardly even three steps away to begin with so the distance is barely even there. He’s close enough that he could reach out and grab the handle if he wanted to and he was on his way to doing just that when Aziraphale stopped him, the words spilling from his mouth before he could stop them.

“Crowley.” Crowley glances over his shoulder and something on Aziraphale’s face must catch his interest because he turns his whole body around to regard Aziraphale, his eyebrows rising above the rims of his glasses in an unspoken question. “It’s just, well, you see… husbands also—”

“Also?” Crowley prompts and Aziraphale falters. He knows what he was going to say but he hasn’t the faintest idea  _ why _ he was going to say it and any small amount of nerve he had built up quickly wilts under Crowley’s gaze. “C’mon angel, I can’t be a good husband if you don’t tell me what I’m meant to do.”

“We’re not  _ actual _ husbands, Crowley.” Aziraphale says in lieu of answering the question. It feels like deja vu and he remembers saying it to Crowley with Anathema earlier. Briefly he spares a thought to wonder if it’s significant that he's already had to say it more than once. He figures it isn’t. He hopes it isn’t. 

“I know that.” Crowley moves a step closer and Aziraphale feels himself stiffen in his spot. “But nobody else does. So tell me, Aziraphale. We’re in this together now.”

Aziraphale thinks back to what Crowley had said a few glasses deep into the night. If they were  _ actually _ married as they were meant to be, these sorts of things would be habits by now. It wouldn’t be weird for Crowley to kiss him in their shared kitchen, it would make Aziraphale feel like he was breaking apart at the very core of his bones. If they were really married, Aziraphale wouldn’t even have to say what he was thinking right now, it would just be something that they  _ did _ . And if they were going to sell this…

“Husbands also kiss each other goodbye.” Aziraphale pinches his eyes shut as he says it, the words tearing themselves from his chest against his will. “That is— I  _ assume _ they would anyways. And it’s just— it’s for authenticity, you know! Since we’ve already kissed once I figure it shouldn’t be a big deal. And if we’ve gone that far we should, well, cover our bases. Plus—”

The end of Aziraphale's sentence is cut off by Crowley’s lips on his, just as warm and gentle as they had been in the kitchen. Aziraphale tilts his head up automatically to meet the kiss, one hand reaching for Crowley’s jacket to steady himself on something. Crowley has one hand on his hip and the other along his cheek as he kisses him and Aziraphale can feel the smile against his own lips.

When they had kissed earlier, the moment had seemed to happen so quickly. Aziraphale had felt like he’d been in a sort of daze then, the fog of the alcohol taking away the weight of the moment. But now he was completely sober, perfectly aware of the planes of Crowley’s chest against his, the movement of his lips. He could feel each individual fingertip on Crowley’s hands and where they were pressed against him, burning into his skin with a sort of heat that Aziraphale wasn’t used to feeling. 

The kiss wasn’t particularly long, though Aziraphale wouldn’t call it short, either. Crowley pulled away first, just slightly, before leaning down to kiss him again. This one is a little firmer, a little more comfortable than the first one and Aziraphale feels like he’s losing himself in the sensation of it.

If his mind were clearer— in this case clearer means not clogged up with the sensations of Crowley— he would insist that this was all only because it had been awhile since he’d kissed anyone or been close to them in any way— including emotionally. He would insist it was something simpler, something more obvious. He would tell himself that this wouldn’t last and that he’d get used to kissing Crowley— a shock indeed— and the sensations would fade away. Reasonably, it couldn’t  _ always _ feel like this to kiss Crowley. It was just because it was new and uncertain. 

His mind wasn’t clear at the moment, though, so those thoughts would trickle in later. 

“You’re right.” Crowley murmurs as he pulls back and Aziraphale can’t honestly decide if he’s glad or not that Crowley’s sunglasses are blocking half of his expression. “Husbands do kiss each other goodnight. S’not a big deal, angel. Just a kiss. I’m happy to kiss you whenever you want me to.”

Aziraphale blusters immediately and he knows his cheeks are impossibly red. “It’s not that I  _ want _ you to!” He cries immediately, “It’s just that it’s something that needs to be done so that we can pull this off.”

“You can call it whatever you want.” Crowley’s grin is far too wide for Aziraphale’s liking as he finally retreats a few steps back towards the Bentley, his hands sliding off of Aziraphale, dragging gently against his skin for one long moment before they finally break contact. “But I’ll always know the truth.”

“You’ve got me.” Aziraphale tugs on the end of his jacket to straighten it, even though it absolutely hasn’t gone askew. Sarcasm drips lethally off of every word as he speaks. “I’ll be up all night dreaming of your kiss.”

“That sounds more like it.” Crowley retreats the rest of the way to his Bentley, pausing with the door open to send one more lingering look at Aziraphale before climbing inside. “Goodnight, angel.  _ Sweet dreams _ .”

“Goodnight, darling.” Aziraphale replies stubbornly, turning his back on Crowley and heading for the door of his complex before Crowley has a chance to say anything else. 

Aziraphale hears the engine roar to life behind him and then a moment later the Bentley is pulling away from the curb and taking off into the street, disappearing into the shadows of the horizon in just a moment. Aziraphale pauses outside his building, leaning against the wall and pressing a hand over his heart as he stares blankly in front of him. 

When Aziraphale had agreed with Crowley in the shop a few days ago, he certainly hadn’t intended for it to go anywhere. It had been nothing more than a means for annoying Crowley back in the same way that Crowley always insisted on annoying him. It wasn’t meant to be anything more. 

When Aziraphale had shown up at  _ Hellfire _ two days later and told Beelzebub that Crowley was his husband, he had known what he was doing but he hadn’t, at all, considered the extent of the lie. When he’d lied then he’d thought that he was just dooming himself to some uncomfortable conversations and the need to think quickly on his feet from time to time. He hadn’t realized he would be immersing himself in the lie, wrapping it around him and holding on tight. He hadn’t realized that the lie would ever become something more than just words.

Perhaps if he’d been thinking properly, he would’ve realized that this sort of lie was too big to stay isolated like he anticipated. It was the kind of lie that seeped into every aspect of his life, found its way into every hidden corner and demanded the spotlight. Already it had spread in a way he couldn’t have expected— not just with the kiss but with the fact that Gabriel now knew about the lie. By extension this undoubtedly meant that the rest of the university knew about it, too, and were gossiping behind his back about his husband. 

This was quite the predicament. 

With a heavy sigh, Aziraphale pushes off of the wall and turns to head into his flat. This isn’t something he can solve tonight, especially not with the cold air wrapping around him the way Crowley just had, the start contrast reminding him of exactly what had just happened. He needs to sleep and get some distance from this, he needs to leave it behind.

It was just as Crowley had said, nothing more than a kiss. Or, rather, a couple kisses, but that distinction was irrelevant. All that mattered was that this  _ didn’t _ matter, not really. This was something they were going to do for a month and then they’d go their separate ways again, occasionally running into each other in public and probably laughing as they remembered the calamity that this month was shaping up to become. This was just a night, a blip on the map of Aziraphale’s entire life, it didn’t have any right to hold onto him the way it was trying to. 

The door to his building opens up easily and Aziraphale trudges inside, opting to take the stairs instead of the elevator. He needed the motion to burn off the thoughts plaguing his mind, the lingering feeling of Crowley’s touch. 

By the time he makes it to his flat he’s feeling more composed than before. He spent the entire walk determining what to do and had resolved not to mention it unless Crowley did. He would play the part of the husband, reaching for his other half and meeting him in the middle when he needed to. That’s what they had agreed to do, after all. So there was no reason for Aziraphale to fret, to consider bringing it back up and hashing it out with Crowley. There was no reason for it to take up any additional space in his mind so he banished it, choosing instead to use that space to figure out all the things they still needed to talk about. 

On top of that, Aziraphale had to prepare for his meeting with Beelzebub tomorrow. The time was still undetermined and the meeting wasn’t meant to have any amount of pressure, but Aziraphale felt the need to prepare as best as he could for it anyways. For a man who hated change, he somehow managed to change about every aspect of his life in less than a week. It was that uneasiness, that feeling of walking on uneven ground that was making him fixate so hard on the kiss, he told himself. It was the only thing he felt like he could get any amount of grip on.

He made it to his flat and kicked his shoes off, moving methodically through his evening routine. He did his best to keep his thoughts shallow as he brushed his teeth and changed into his pajamas, realizing belatedly that he hadn’t actually eaten dinner. He’d had a snack before meeting Crowley and that was all he’d had since lunch. In his mind he knew that he should be hungry but he was honestly too tired for it to register. That tiredness was a blessing, he figured. It meant that he would fall asleep quickly and this disaster of a day would be behind him in a matter of minutes. He’d fall asleep nearly the moment his head hit the pillow and then this day would be over.

Tomorrow would be a new day, a day in which he didn’t kiss Crowley or hold his hand or call him  _ darling _ . Tomorrow would be a new day where Aziraphale would be himself again and he’d feel like it. And that alone was the comfort he needed to finally drag himself to bed. 

His bed was comfortable beneath him as he slid under the covers and flipped out the light. This was quite the mess, indeed, but they would get through it and someday they would look back on it and laugh. Or maybe cringe. But the point was that there was a  _ someday _ where this was all over and just a distant memory.

It was that thought that Aziraphale fell asleep to. That thought and that thought alone— no thoughts of Crowley or his kisses that could possibly bleed into his dreams. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Angel, you are _not_ doing extensive research into these articles.”
> 
> “I have to!”
> 
> “They’re articles for _Hellfire_. If they’ll read my— what do you call it?— drivel, they’ll read your articles with only five sources instead of your usual ten.”
> 
> “I have _standards_ —“
> 
> “And a deadline.” Crowley points out and he sees Aziraphale’s face crumple. “That’s much sooner than you're used to.”
> 
> Aziraphale huffs but doesn’t protest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm going to be honest here: this chapter fought me tooth and nail. I struggled SO HARD with it. It took me ages and many nights of lamenting in my friends dms to finally figure out how to wrangle it all together into something even a little coherent. So I'm a little hesitant to post just because I have all these frustrated feelings towards this chapter. I hope you guys won't be able to tell <3
> 
> As always, thank you SO MUCH for the love on this fic. I am wildly overwhelmed! I have had my friends tell me they've seen this fic rec'd on all sorts of different social media platforms and I am just blown away by the response to it! Please know how much your love and support means and know that I reread all of your comments a lot in the last week when struggling through this chapter. They really help motivate me and remind me why I'm writing this in the first place. I am eternally grateful to all of you <3

The blank computer screen stares mockingly back at him.

It’s not the first time Aziraphale has been in a fight with a word document and he’s certain it won’t be the last but there’s something about this time in particular that rubs him the wrong way. He’s frustrated and the computer seems to know it, holding it out in front of him like a constant reminder of his failures. Part of him thinks that perhaps it isn’t the computer he’s mad at, the rest of him isn’t willing to inspect it too closely for fear of finding out that it’s not as simple of a solution as typing a few words finally. 

When Aziraphale had first agreed to work for  _ Hellfire _ , the prospect of writing whatever he wanted had sounded enticing. It still sounded enticing, if he were being honest, but it turned out that it was rather more complicated than Aziraphale had anticipated. The freedom to select  _ anything _ was nearly  _ too much _ freedom. He had so many ideas! Years worth of them! He had kept a notebook over the years of things that intrigued him, thoughts he wanted to explore. The notebook was nearly full now, so many ideas he wanted to examine and expand upon, things he wanted to break apart just so he could learn how to put them back together again. It wasn’t that he couldn’t think of what to write for his first article but rather that he had so many ideas, he didn’t know which one to pick.

How was he meant to categorize them? How could he decide which was more important than the others? It simply seemed like too big of a responsibility for just him. Especially considering that each topic, each idea had a special place in his heart, had a tug on his mind and a pull for his interest.

His notebook sat open in front of him on his kitchen table with a series of ideas scribbled down and then scribbled out as he had tried to work through it. He had successfully eliminated a few of the ideas— the ones that were less relevant, the ones he’d heard other people talk about, whether or not he agreed with their take on it. He would like to have his say on those topics eventually but he was only given a limited number of articles that he was allowed to write and he wasn’t about to waste that chance on these topics. 

The articles he was to write for  _ Hellfire _ needed to be up to his standards: they needed to be hard-hitting and thoroughly researched. But the problem was also his schedule. Aziraphale was used to having  _ months _ to research something properly and to write many, many drafts before finally settling on the one he would allow to be edited. But suddenly he was given a week to try and maintain his same standards and it honestly just didn’t seem like enough. He was anxious about it just as much as he was frustrated by it.

So he’d taken out his notebook and he’d written down any and every idea he could come up with. He’d filled line after line after line and then he’d gone through and scratched out as many as he could to try and at least get his frustration under control. 

It was progress, certainly, but he still had at least ten ideas left on his list that he couldn’t strike out for one reason or another. He had been going over it for nearly an hour now, working his way down the list and talking himself out of crossing something off because he really could make a compelling argument if he tried. And that was exactly the problem— he  _ did _ try. He argued with himself, he jotted notes in the margin, he did everything except actually settling on an idea. 

There was a voice in the very back of Aziraphale’s mind whispering that he was doing this on purpose— that he was avoiding something by purposely  _ not  _ making a decision. After all, if he didn’t make a decision now, he could never move on to a new topic and this dilemma could continue to take up all the available space in his brain, leaving room for nothing else. 

With a sigh, Aziraphale leaned back in his chair, taking off the small pair of glasses he sometimes wore while working and scrubbed at his eyes. After his meeting with Beelzebub earlier in the day when he’d been verbally introduced to the rest of the team and given his official marching orders, Aziraphale had felt encouraged. He had hung up the phone and gotten straight to work, eager to flex his imagination and work on the things that had been sitting half developed in his mind for so long. But the moment he opened his notebook, all thought seemed to leave his mind and everything he tried to do was unsuccessful.

Not to mention that every time Aziraphale tried to take even a momentary mental break, his mind somehow managed to find its way back to Crowley. He needed to call Crowley— he had promised he would after his meeting with Beelzebub but he hadn’t yet gotten up the guts to do it. It was silly, he knew that with absolute certainty. It wasn’t as if Crowley was going to pick up and demand they talk about their kiss— multiple kisses, in fact. It wasn’t as if Crowley was going to ask him if he could still feel the press of his lips, the curve of his fingers under Aziraphale’s jaw. 

He could still feel those things, but there was no way Crowley could possibly know that.

There was also no reason for Crowley to ask. They had agreed that doing things like that was a part of their deal, an expected act among husbands. There was no doubt in Aziraphale’s mind that Crowley had climbed back in his Bentley and driven home without ever even thinking about it again because any reasonable adult would be able to separate a kiss as a single act that didn’t mean anything deep. There were no unspoken words hidden that kiss, no secrets trapped just behind Crowley’s lips for him to find. It had been a kiss— two kisses— and that was where it started and ended.

And yet Aziraphale’s mind seemed determined to read further into it, to look for hidden meanings, to pry for deeper emotions that he logically knew weren’t there.

He tried his hardest to convince himself that it was nothing other than the fact that he hadn’t been kissed in a long time. If there was  _ anything _ else going on in his mind, it was related to all the romance novels he’d been reading lately. That had been Gabriel’s most recent request for analyses— romance. It was a big market that Gabriel really wanted Aziraphale to break into and so he’d spent the last few months up to his shoulders in ridiculous romantic tropes.

But, he reasoned with himself, that was more of a reason to understand that this thing they shared  _ wasn’t _ romantic, not more of a reason to feel like it was. In those books the love interest was always pouring their heart out and coming to the heroine’s rescue. Crowley certainly hadn’t ever poured his heart out and honestly Aziraphale couldn’t even imagine what that would look like. And instead of coming to his rescue, Crowley was the source of all of his problems! In fact, if there were an opposite of romance— and Aziraphale assumed there was but he couldn’t quite place a name for it at the moment— that was what they shared. Even enemies could kiss sometimes.

Yes, Aziraphale told himself, trying to reign his thoughts back to what he was meant to be focusing on— which, as it stood, was absolutely  _ not _ kissing Crowley and yet his mind was determined to wander there. Anyone could kiss for any reason and there were plenty of reasons for people to kiss that  _ weren’t _ romantic.

Briefly he considered making a list of those just for something to do but he couldn’t afford to keep getting this sidetracked. He still had a deadline of just under a week, the last thing he could afford was to throw time away on something like this.

With renewed determination, Aziraphale sat back up in his chair and regarded the list in front of him. He needed to stop thinking about these things. If his mind was truly sent spiraling like this every time he even  _ thought _ about kissing Crowley, he certainly wouldn’t make a very convincing husband when he had to  _ actually _ kiss Crowley. Their cover would be blown the instant Crowley pulled away and Aziraphale launched into a twenty minute mental debate with himself about the entire thing. He needed to just wrap his mind around the idea of it, to get comfortable with the physical act of it. He needed to really  _ believe _ that it was just a means to an end and nothing more. There was no use allowing himself to turn this whole thing into such a fuss, it only complicated matters further and he had certainly done his fair share of making this a complicated wreck, it was perhaps time that he took a break from it.

It wasn’t easy to take a break from it, though, not when he could still taste the wine from Crowley’s lips in his mouth.

The list stared back at him, even more mocking than before, and Aziraphale was ready to scream. He’d hardly made any progress all day and at this point he was too deep down the rabbit hole to sort this out on his own. As much as he hated to admit it, he needed help if he was going to get back on track and meet his deadlines. His first thought was to ask Anathema, and he knew she would be willing to help as much as she could, but he needed someone who knew more about his specific situation.

He needed someone who knew Beelzebub, who knew  _ Hellfire _ and what their expectations were. He needed someone who was used to writing on short deadlines and could give a valid and honest opinion.

He needed Crowley.

Reasonably, there really wasn’t anyone else that he could call to talk to about it. There wasn’t anyone else who would be able to properly tweak his work into what it needed to be, who knew his habits and his rituals and could twist them into something that fit into a week. 

With every fiber in his being screaming at him to stop, Aziraphale dug his phone out of his pocket, dialing the number before he had a chance to stop himself. It was going to be fine, he told himself repeatedly. It was just a conversation with Crowley like every conversation they’d had before. There were no hidden undertones, no weight to it. He simply needed Crowley’s opinion on his writing— it was professional. 

“Angel.” Crowley picked up on the first ring. He sounded pleased to hear from Aziraphale, but not drastically so. In fact, he almost sounded a little distracted, like he was working on something else in the background while he spoke to Aziraphale. It was so casual that it almost hurt. 

“I need you.” Aziraphale said immediately. There was definitely a way he could have said it that would’ve had more tact, a way that would’ve been less direct. As it stood, it could potentially be a good thing. Getting right to the point would cut down the length of the conversation and allow them both to move on.

If only it were that easy. But nothing was ever that easy with Crowley. 

“Music to my ears.” Crowley laughed into the phone and Aziraphale could feel the way his attention shifted so that it was now all directed at Aziraphale, whatever else he’d been doing in the background completely abandoned. “What can I do you for?”

Already Aziraphale is chewing on his lip, a nervous habit he’d had all his life— a nervous habit he had no use directing towards Crowley. They’d had countless conversations before, his mind was just getting away from him because of all the stress. “I need to talk about this article I’m meant to be writing.”

“Need me to write it for you?” Crowley teased and there was something so casual and easy about his voice, something so unguarded and unstressed, like he hadn’t spent the morning sitting there replaying their kisses and then kicking himself for it. He probably hadn’t, but Aziraphale certainly had. He wondered if Crowley could hear it in his voice. “I know you regard my talent highly, angel, but I must tell you that it comes with a price.”

“Oh please.” Aziraphale scoffed and he felt a small amount of relief with the gesture.

“I’m serious. Very expensive, my skills. You’ll owe me big time when I write you a hit article.”

“Can you be serious for even a single moment?” Aziraphale grumbled in response, his nerves dissolving into that familiar annoyance. It was like a breath of fresh air, to feel like he knew where he stood again, to know that Crowley was nothing other than his usual self, aggravating as always. “I genuinely need to talk to you about this article.”

“Fine.” Crowley seemed to settle into the conversation a little bit, the teasing edge of his voice melting into something more genuine but still conversational. “I’ll collect my payment later. What’s up?”

Aziraphale sighed audibly and he was hopeful that Crowley heard it on the other end of the line. He could just picture Crowley’s self-satisfied smirk, the one he always wore when he successfully found his way under Aziraphale’s skin. “Can you meet up? It would be much easier to discuss in person.”

“Miss me already, do you?” 

“I didn’t say—”

“It’s alright to admit it, angel. I’m hard not to miss.”

There’s a murmur of voices in the background. Aziraphale can’t make out what they’re saying and he doesn’t recognize any of them but it becomes abundantly clear in that moment that Crowley isn’t alone. And now that Aziraphale thinks about it, it would’ve been silly to believe that he would be. Of course there were other people in the office— people who could potentially overhear Crowley’s side of the conversation. People who had to have a certain image of them.

Aziraphale takes in a breath. Apparently  _ everything _ is a performance now. “Yes, alright, you’ve got me. I miss you  _ terribly _ . Now are you going to meet up with me or not?”

There was a momentary pause and Aziraphale could hear something shuffling on Crowley’s side of things. Then Crowley’s voice came back through the line, a little bit tighter than it had been previously, the joking edge gone. “Good news angel, my afternoon is clear. I’m all yours.”

“Crowley—”

“We could do lunch?”

“I already ate.”

“A walk in the park then.” Crowley presses on, entirely undeterred. “Long, romantic, leisurely. The perfect place to talk.”

Aziraphale’s gut instinct is to chastise Crowley for saying such things, to remind him that it’s all a farce, blasphemy. But then he remembers that Crowley is in the office and there’s a good chance that his end of the conversation is being overheard by the people around him. Aziraphale doesn’t like it, but he knows that he can’t get upset at it, can’t ask Crowley to stop. This is what he unintentionally signed up for when he took the job so now he has to face it, even if it makes his stomach flip and his heart jump to his throat. 

“A walk through the park sounds lovely.” Aziraphale says instead of all the other thoughts running through his mind, taking in a deep breath and trying not to wonder why his fingertips feel like they’re tingling while he’s talking to Crowley. “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes?”

“Can’t wait to see you.” Crowley says too smoothly and it catches Aziraphale’s breath in his throat. 

He knows that Crowley is doing it because he has to. He knows that. But some part of his soul, some dark corner of his heart just can’t let Crowley have all the fun, can’t let him have the last word and certainly can’t let him be the only one behaving like this, If they were in this together, they had to suffer together, too.

A different dark corner of his mind whispers that this attitude is the exact thing that got them in this situation to start with. That part of his brain knows that this stubbornness can only cause more problems. But, Aziraphale didn’t listen to it back then and he wasn’t going to listen to it now. 

“Yes, I’ve missed you all morning, darling.” Crowley makes a choked noise on the other end of the line and Aziraphale smiles smugly to himself. “I’ll see you there soon.”

There’s a click as Aziraphale hangs up the phone, successfully cutting off whatever retort Crowley might have made. Aziraphale allows himself one moment to feel satisfied before gathering up his offending notebook and heading for the door.

* * *

It’s not exactly  _ cold _ outside, but it’s cool enough that Crowley has to hunch his shoulders against the wind chill as it nips at him, leaving patterns of pink against his skin. Winter is fast approaching but it isn’t quite here yet and he refuses to pull out a proper jacket until at least the first snowfall, maybe even after if he’s feeling particularly stubborn this year. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets as he crosses the road, leaving the Bentley in a safe spot and covering the distance to the park on foot. 

Hastur had been staring at him pointedly and obviously for the entirety of Crowley’s conversation with Aziraphale and it had taken everything in Crowley to maintain a normal and casual tone and not just snap at someone. He’d known that this sudden knowledge of his husband would gain a lot of attention but he had at least expected the lot of them to try and be discreet as they dug for knowledge. His fault, really. He should’ve known better. After  _ years _ of refusing to even acknowledge the idea that he might have a social life, it wasn’t surprising that everyone was trying to sink their teeth into the one piece of information they could get about him. 

It wasn’t surprising but fuck, it was annoying. 

He already had enough to navigate without the vultures circling him for any crumb of information. What he needed was to be left alone to sort his shit out but apparently he couldn’t even be afforded that decency for the length of a single conversation. As if he wasn’t already full of enough conflicting emotions, they had to go and toss irritated fury into the mix. 

After Aziraphale had left the other night, Crowley had spent a significant amount of time thinking about it. Not because— not because he liked it or wanted to do it again but because there was a strange feeling that had settled under his skin and made him feel restless. He’d decided that pretending to be married shouldn’t, honestly, be a big deal and he couldn’t quite figure out why it felt like one when logically it absolutely wasn’t.

He reminded himself over and over that people kissed strangers for far less. A kiss was nothing more than a press of the lips, it didn’t have to have any weight or significance. And honestly, the more that he thought about it, the weirder marriage actually seemed. It was just selecting one person to annoy for the rest of time— forcing yourself to share the same space with someone forever. It was strange, really, to think of liking someone enough to never want space from them, to never need a moment away. The sheer idea was loving someone until that love turned into ambivalence at best and hatred at worst. Not really appealing, Crowley told himself. 

And sure, he knew logically that marriage wasn’t exactly like that— married people had to have at least a few minutes to themselves, didn’t they? They couldn’t possibly be together  _ all _ of the time, it just didn’t make sense. But even with some time away, the thought of marriage just didn’t appeal to Crowley. He just couldn’t imagine handing that much of himself over to someone else and hoping that they didn’t wake up one day and decide they were sick of him. That was half the reason he’d never gotten married already, honestly. 

The good news, he supposes, is that he doesn’t have to worry about that with Aziraphale. Not because their marriage was fake— although that certainly helped his cause— but because Aziraphale was already sick of him. There was no waiting for it to set it some number of years down the line, it was right at the forefront from the very beginning, coloring every interaction they had. 

“There you are!” Aziraphale shoots up from the bench he’s sitting on when he sees Crowley and it startles Crowley so much that he nearly loses his balance. He’d been so trapped in his thoughts that he hadn’t even been aware of where he was going and certainly hadn’t noticed Aziraphale sitting there. “I was starting to worry you wouldn’t come.”

“I’d never stand you up.” Crowley says with just a touch too much honesty, his brain taking a moment to catch up to the situation at hand. “What do you think of me?”

Aziraphale pauses as Crowley comes to a stop before him, “I didn’t mean to imply—” He hesitates, backtracks, glancing up at Crowley. “I just thought perhaps you’d be caught up at work. That’s all I meant by it.”

Crowley stills for a moment and looks at Aziraphale in silence, the awkwardness seeming to stretch out between them. He can feel it taut in the air, pulling them together and yet keeping them apart at the same time. Aziraphale is bundled in an additional coat, one long enough that it ends a little over halfway down his legs. He has his hands clasped behind his back while he looks at Crowley’s face but not into his eyes. 

For a moment it seems like the entire world around them stands still, waiting with baited breath to see what they do, what they say. In the back of his mind, Crowley thinks that there’s a right thing to say, something specific that can diffuse this tension. He doesn’t know what it is and his gut tells him that it’ll be nothing more than a swing and a miss if he just takes a gamble on it and starts talking. 

He knows what the tension is, of course he knows what it is. It’s not hard to read the signs, not hard to recognize his own insecurities reflecting in Aziraphale at this moment. He’ll admit— quietly, to himself and  _ only _ himself— to being a little uncertain about meeting with Aziraphale today, about seeing him in person again. The last time he’d seen Aziraphale he had kissed him and since that moment, Crowley hadn’t been able to escape the kiss. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Aziraphale standing here insisting that husbands kissed goodbye, he felt the ghost of Aziraphale’s lips on his, heard the small sound of pleasured surprise Aziraphale had let out when Crowley had bent down and met him in the middle.

It was like it had taken over his brain. Not even that, the moments of their kisses had  _ become  _ his brain, become the center of all else he did. Aziraphale had been softer than Crowley would have expected— if he’d had expectations, of course, which he didn’t. Having expectations would imply that he’d thought about this before and he could honestly say that he hadn’t. But he was fairly certain that he was never going to  _ stop  _ thinking about it now.

He had spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if he’d crossed a line, if he’d pushed too far and scared Aziraphale away. He told himself that it was impossible because now Aziraphale’s career was tied up in this whole mess so, at the very least, Aziraphale would stay and see this month through for his own sake. But there was no saying how Aziraphale would react. Crowley had tried to mentally prepare himself for a verbal lashing, prepare himself for Aziraphale to set clear boundaries that indicated when they could and could not do things such as this.

Hell, he’d anticipated Aziraphale showing up with a clearly written outline of expectations that he was going to sit down and walk Crowley through. And honestly, if he were really thinking about it, he could picture the list in his mind and it was definitely color coded. Maybe even laminated. 

_ That  _ was what he had expected and what he had come here ready to endure. 

He hadn’t expected for Aziraphale to freeze up before him, nervously chewing at the corner of his lip as he clearly searched for something to say.

“Angel,” Crowley says gently and he’s honestly not sure if it’s for his benefit or Aziraphale’s. By the look on Aziraphale’s face, Crowley felt it was a fair assessment to say that they both needed comfort right now. “We’re not teenage girls.”

It catches Aziraphale enough off guard that he snaps his eyes up to finally meet Crowley’s gaze, his eyes wide and as blue as the sky above them. Crowley’s just about to lose some internal battle and say something unreasonable stupid about the color of them when Aziraphale unknowingly saves them both from that potential disaster and speaks up. 

“Yes?” He says, confused. “I was rather aware of that, actually.”

“So there’s no need for this—” Crowley gestures vaguely to the space between them, encompassing the entire situation. He could put more articulate words to it if he wanted to but the truth was simply that he didn’t want to. Everything was complicated enough already, putting it into concrete words was not going to make it any cleaner. “ _ This _ .”

“I’m certain I don’t know what you mean.” Aziraphale replies, though there’s a hint of pink at his cheeks that Crowley suspects has nothing to do with the biting wind. He sees the stubborn set to Aziraphale’s jaw and knows that expression immediately— purposeful ignorance. Aziraphale is a very brilliant man with many honed skills and his ability to purposely miss a point was perhaps his most refined. It was certainly his most utilized if nothing else. “You do know how I love it when you’re unreasonably vague, though.”

“ _ This.” _ Crowley emphasizes again, but he can’t help the curl at the corner of his lips that comes from Aziraphale being snarky in response to him. That, at least, is normal. 

Perhaps nothing else in this situation is going the way he expected it to, but this is. This is tried and true, an argument as well worn as Crowley’s jackets. It was an armor, almost, shielding them both from the conversation they were clearly trying to avoid. 

“Ah, that certainly clears it up.” Aziraphale stiffens his shoulders the tiniest bit and it’s almost convincing enough to make Crowley think that he made the whole thing up in his head. If he didn’t know Aziraphale’s ticks as well as he did, he  _ would  _ believe he’d made it up. But he knew better and Aziraphale would have to work harder than that to pull off the lie he was aiming for. “Thank you for your elaboration.”

With a sigh, Crowley shakes his head. Maybe the moment blew over already, he couldn’t quite be sure. But if Aziraphale was determined to plow on without addressing it, well, that suited Crowley perfectly. 

“Alright, fine.” Crowley raises one shoulder in a half hearted shrug and takes a step around Aziraphale, taking off down the path through the park without looking back to check whether or not Aziraphale was following. He knew he would be. “Out with it, then. What’d you need me for?”

“I believe,” Aziraphale falls into step next to him, his hands still clasped firmly behind him as he allows Crowley to navigate them along the trails. “I’ve already answered that question.”

“You’re in fine form today.” Crowley hunches his shoulders against another burst of wind and refuses to ask for further clarification. If Aziraphale would like to behave like this, Crowley could certainly jump onboard. “S’like you’ve been practicing.”

“Well you see,” Aziraphale seems entirely unaffected by the wind and Crowley isn’t  _ jealous  _ but he would love to feel similarly. “Your company affords me plenty of opportunity to practice.”

“So you save your best behavior for me?” Crowley quips. The air between them is still a little stiff but it’s starting to move more fluidly, to take a breath and allow them a little room to wiggle. 

It’s a trap and he knows it, he set it intentionally. Aziraphale can’t very well agree to that, but he certainly can’t admit that it is, in fact, his  _ worst  _ behavior that he reserves for Crowley. 

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Aziraphale says again and Crowley can’t help the sharp grin that comes with victory.

They walk a few more paces in silence, the awkwardness seeming to be left behind. That’s good, Crowley thinks. They got it out and over with. There’s no reason for it to be awkward again in the future, he assumes. And so what if they’re not talking about it? That just makes it easier to deal with. After years of practice and an old life buried, Crowley has learned to value the chances to  _ not  _ discuss something. It gives him less of a chance to fuck it up, less of an opportunity for it to be taken away from him. 

Aziraphale sighs and seems to sag next to him, finally unclasping his hands and allowing them to fall to his side. He pauses and turns to look at Crowley, all the fight seemingly gone out of him. “I’m not being helpful, am I?”

“You said it.”

“I’m afraid this is turning out to be more difficult than I anticipated and the stress of the entire situation is, well, wearing on me.”

“Right well,” Crowley pauses too, to allow a mother and her small child to pass them, stepping closer to Aziraphale to make room for them on the sidewalk. “We’re in this together so let’s see what we can do, shall we?”

“You make it sound easy.” 

“It is easy, angel. For you, at least.” Crowley glances at Aziraphale and then away, tilting his head back just enough that he’s sure Aziraphale can’t see behind his sunglasses. “I’ve read your work, you know. Hard to believe, I get it. But I have. And you’re brilliant. An article like this is nothing.”

Aziraphale opens his mouth as if to respond and then promptly closes it. Crowley isn’t sure if he’d thought better of what he was going to say or if the words had abandoned him entirely. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure which was the better option. 

His words hung in the air between them, not quite as heavy as the discomfort from before but not nearly as far off of that as Crowley would like it to be. He spends a moment considering taking them back but that would be both useless and cruel. 

Finally, after what feels like absolute eons, Aziraphale opens his mouth again and this time sound does come out. “You’ve read my work?”

“ ‘Course I have.”

“When?”

“Over the years.” 

“You—“ Aziraphale takes a breath but it doesn’t appear to steady him at all. “You didn’t just do it to pretend to be my husband?”

Crowley responds with a gesture that falls somewhere between shaking his head and shrugging. It’s perhaps the best representation of how he feels at the moment. 

He’d started reading Aziraphale’s work at that first conference when they’d met. He’d googled Aziraphale after their first encounter and it had been impossible to not be drowned in his work. Crowley hadn’t found the tidbit about the name Aziraphale meaning angel until he was on his third page of the google search results. Aziraphale had won awards, had brought his university more funding and was highly esteemed amongst his peers. It wasn’t hard to find a link to any— or all— of his work. And, well, Crowley had wanted to know more about him. 

One of the easiest ways to learn about a writer is to look at their writing style. Crowley’s, for example, is flashy and fast-paced with dynamic sentences that bleed into each other, easing the reader through the whole article before they really even realize they’ve moved past the title. Aziraphale’s, on the other hand, is very proper. It’s full of vocabulary words Crowley has never heard of and sentence structures that are so stern, the reader has no choice but to advance. There’s something about the way Aziraphale writes that guides the reader to the end with a stern hand and one pointed look. 

It had seemed to line up well with Crowley’s initial impression of him and had held mostly true over the years. But the more Crowley got to know Aziraphale, the more he started to see the nuances of Aziraphale’s personality reflected in his writing. Crowley could recognize the sentences when Aziraphale tried to reconcile things because he had come down a bit too harsh with his initial opinion. He could see the moments where the words seemed to flow out of Aziraphale’s mind unbroken, a stream of consciousness that gave a truer glimpse to Aziraphale’s real feelings. All the things that Aziraphale did in verbal conversation could be found in his writing. And for Crowley, who had plenty of conversational experience with Aziraphale, the small gestures were waiting for him just between the lines.

In the middle of a particularly heavy paragraph, Crowley could imagine Aziraphale scrubbing at his eyes, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. After a particularly strong closing paragraph, Crowley could see Aziraphale sitting back in his chair with a pleased wiggle and a triumphant smile. With every word he read, he could see the furrowed brows, the bit lip, the tension in the shoulders. Aziraphale himself was in the DNA of everything he wrote and sometimes Crowley wonders if that’s the real reason he goes back and reads everything Aziraphale publishes, just for the glimpses, the small taste of him. 

“Point is,” Crowley tries to take control of the discussion again. He certainly has Aziraphale’s full attention if his wide eyes and parted lips are anything to go by. “An article like this is no problem for you.”

Aziraphale swallows deliberately and Crowley flat out refuses to watch him bring his lips together as he licks them before speaking, his gaze still dazed. “That would—“ Aziraphale clears his throat and tries again. “That may be the case if I have a topic. That, however, is the problem. I don’t know what to write about.”

“You don’t have any ideas?”

“Quite the opposite. I have  _ too many  _ ideas.”

Crowley huffs out a quiet laugh and clings to the conversation, trying to not feel unsteady on his feet as they start walking again. The park is crowded and they’re forced to walk so close together that their shoulders brush. If his hands weren’t shoved so deeply into his pockets, Crowley thinks that their knuckles would be brushing. Aziraphale talks while they walk and Crowley listens, forcing his mind to focus only on Aziraphale’s voice and to hear his dilemma. 

It wasn’t often that Aziraphale admitted to him that he was struggling with something and it was even less often that Aziraphale would follow that admittance up with a request for help. Crowley recognized what was being presented to him and he refused to fuck up the opportunity because his mind was trying very hard to occupy itself with the memory of how soft Aziraphale’s skin had been. 

Crowley had anticipated a learning curve with the whole marriage thing, had been prepared for some uncertainty as they navigated this new set of rules and tried to determine the way out that left them both as unscathed as possible. But now that he was in it—  _ barely _ in it, as unfortunate as that was— he was starting to think that it wasn’t possible to make it out the other side unscathed. They were not even a full week into this new dynamic and already Crowley found it seeping into cracks and corners of his life that he didn’t expect. And he could certainly feel the lasting effects of it. It wasn’t going to be as easy as Aziraphale completing the four weeks of his job and then disappearing, Crowley was starting to think. This felt too substantial for people to let go of it. 

Vaguely he wonders if it’s simply the fact that he’s married that has gotten everyone’s attention or if it’s a matter of  _ who  _ he married that’s done it. Certainly everyone he’s worked with has heard of Aziraphale before. Even though they didn’t write in remotely similar fields, anyone who wrote knew all the big names in the other fields and Aziraphale was definitely a big name. 

“What if I started off simple?” Aziraphale turned to look at Crowley and his hair did that thing where it catches the light and seems to glow. Crowley glances at him and then immediately away. “An article on the importance of the Oxford comma.”

“You have such strong feelings about the Oxford comma that you want to write an article about it?” Crowley’s question is genuine, but there’s a little bit of teasing in there too. 

Aziraphale takes it all in stride. “Not using the Oxford comma can lead to serious miscommunications, Crowley! And it’s starting to fall by the wayside, I’m afraid. I think it would be a good starting place.”

“You know,” Crowley replies mildly. “When I first met you, I would’ve assumed you were the kind of person to care so much about the Oxford comma that you’d want to write and publish an article on it. I just can’t believe it’s taken me years to get proof.”

“Is that a yes or a no?” Aziraphale shoots him a glare that lacks any of the normal amount of bite but still gets the point that he’s stressed and in need of help across. 

“Yes.” Crowley answers, swallowing down any additional remarks he’d like to make. “I think it’s a good starting place. Plus, tons of the people who read your stuff are aspiring writers and authors so you have an audience for it.”

“It’s a good building block.” Aziraphale thinks aloud. “One of the basics that I feel is being overlooked. And I can add some additional information just to round it out…” They lapse into momentary silence and Crowley can feel the wheels on Aziraphale’s mind turning as he contemplates all his potential options for this article. “Yes, I think that will do nicely. And it’s a subject I should be able to write quickly. I already have some sources—“

“Angel, you are  _ not  _ doing extensive research into these articles.”

“I have to!”

“They’re articles for  _ Hellfire _ . If they’ll read my— what do you call it?— drivel, they’ll read your articles with only five sources instead of your usual ten.”

“I have  _ standards _ —“

“And a deadline.” Crowley points out and he sees Aziraphale’s face crumple. “That’s much sooner than you're used to.”

Aziraphale huffs but doesn’t protest. 

They wind their way around one last corner and suddenly they find themselves facing the entrance of the park again. It’s still a little way’s off, but it's there as a steady reminder that this needs to come to an end. Crowley has helped Aziraphale in the way he needed and he did still have some of his own work to do. He should bid Aziraphale a farewell when they reach the entrance and go his own way, heading back to the safety of the life he knows— the one without Aziraphale next to him, breathing out puffs of air that Crowley can almost see in the cold, his shoulder pressed to Crowley’s. 

He should just leave. Instead he says, “We can write together, if you’d like. Our own articles, obviously, but I can be there to turn off your internet once you start going down too many rabbit holes.”

“ _ Can _ you turn the internet off?” 

Crowley laughs again and it feels warm in his chest. “There’s one way to find out. Worst case, I steal your notebook. Or are you still using a typewriter?”

“Must you insist on being insufferable?” Aziraphale sighs.

“I must.”

That earns him a shake of the head and a glower. They reach the entrance to the park and stop, turning to face each other. 

Aziraphale looks up at him and Crowley can  _ feel  _ how much he hates his next words before he even says them. “That would be rather helpful if it’s not putting you out.”

“Not at all.” Crowley clenches his hands in his pockets. “I always have the time to help you.”

He means it as a teasing jab— he means he always has time to help his  _ husband _ . He doesn’t mean for it to come out soft and maybe even a little tender, and yet it does. And Aziraphale’s eyes soften the tiniest bit in response and he seems to let go of some of the tension he’s holding onto. 

“I’m afraid you may be quite right.” Aziraphale says quietly, his voice nearly a whisper as if he’s sharing some sort of secret with Crowley. It feels like he is. “I think I may end up very surprised by you.”

* * *

They decide to go back to Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale wasn’t sure how that came to be but somewhere between admitting that Crowley was surprising him and now, he had offered his flat for the evening so that they could work on articles together. As much as he didn’t like to feel like he needed help, Aziraphale knew that this new type of writing was going to be a challenge for him and some guidance would be greatly appreciated. And Crowley had been great at the park— listening diligently and giving his genuine but kind opinion on each of Aziraphale’s ideas. He hadn’t been afraid to shut some of them down and he’d been right to do so, and he’d considered the others properly. 

It gave Aziraphale some comfort, having Crowley there as a second mind and a second set of eyes. And Crowley had addressed his emotional turmoil with such gentleness that it had nearly taken Aziraphale’s breath away. In hindsight he knew it was wrong of him to have feared that Crowley would make fun of him, sneer at his ideas or in any way put him down. Crowley had a certain aloof air about him that he had carefully crafted to look disinterested and unengaged, but the truth was that he did care about certain things and he cared about them a lot. 

That, apparently, gave him the ability to recognize when  _ someone else  _ cared a lot about something and so he treated those things with the same care he would if they were his feelings. 

And so Aziraphale’s mind had been so wrapped up in this that he’d invited Crowley back. And Crowley had said yes. And now they were at the office to gather Crowley’s things and allow him to follow up on a few emails before disappearing together to spend the evening writing with take out food and some silly movie on in the background. It was almost as domestic as they were supposed to be and Aziraphale didn’t know how to handle himself. 

On the ride over— Crowley had driven better but Aziraphale still wouldn’t call it anywhere close to  _ good  _ driving— they had reminded each other that they were about to have to put on the full husbands act again. Crowley had given him a long look, no doubt thinking of “ _ this _ ”, as he had referred to it earlier. Aziraphale remained entirely unwilling to address his pounding heart and instead climbed out of the car and followed Crowley into the building, purposely standing a little closer to him in the elevator than he normally would. 

The office looks much the same as Aziraphale remembers it when the elevator door part and he’s able to see it again. He’s not sure why he thought it would seem different when he returned this time but for some reason he had expected it to have changed. Or perhaps he was the one who had changed. Perhaps it was his hand wrapped tightly in Crowley’s that was altering his entire perspective of everything around him. Perhaps it was all the eyes that fell to them as they walked down the rows of desks and towards Crowley’s, the pressure this time. 

Certainly the weight of it all was dragging him down, making him feel like he was treading water just to stay afloat. 

Crowley’s free hand was tucked casually into his pocket as they went, his other fingers twined through Aziraphale’s and giving him a small tug in encouragement, keeping them in pace with each other as they went. Some people waved at him as they passed— or perhaps they were waving at both of them and Crowley was just steadfastly ignoring them with a practiced sort of ease. It was hard to tell because currently everything Aziraphale felt like he knew had been flipped onto its head and the world didn’t seem to make sense anymore. 

The sheer act of looking at the people they passed, of smiling at them and stammering out half-greetings that sounded more like Crowley’s jumbled sentences than his own was almost too much for him. Crowley’s hand in his was both wildly distracting and the only grounding thing to keep him in this moment. 

He reminds himself that it shouldn’t matter, that such a simple touch shouldn’t mean anything. And he’d almost succeed at changing his own mind if everyone wasn’t whispering as they went, solidifying the idea that it was, for some reason, a big deal.

“If you can just wait about half an hour,” Crowley says as they finally make it to his desk, “I’ll be set and we can head home.”

_ Home _ . In this case, it means Aziraphale’s flat. But nobody listening— and Aziraphale was very certain that a lot of people were listening— knew that. In their minds, Crowley and Aziraphale would leave here to some shared home, some domestic bliss where they cooked dinner together and kissed after brushing their teeth for bed. To all of them, this was something real and deep and Aziraphale had a desperate fear that they somehow had the power to turn that into a reality. 

Aziraphale nods in response, trying to keep a casual exterior taking the chair that Crowley offers him. If he’s going to have a crisis over the idea of him and Crowley leading this domestic life— and he  _ isn’t _ because just the idea of it is preposterous— it’ll have to be later when he’s alone and his job isn’t literally at stake. He’s seated in front of Crowley’s desk, staring at the blank slab of wood and wondering what on Earth he is doing in this moment or in any moment that has led up to this. 

Impulsivity was not a habit that Aziraphale had developed and this was exactly one. One impulsive thing, one moment of speaking before thinking has such far reaching consequences. Those impulsive things linger, latching their claws in and dragging him down. He had been impulsive  _ one  _ time for  _ one  _ lie and here he was a week later, staring wide eyed at the desk of someone he was supposed to know intimately. 

“Hello there,” A voice sounds to Aziraphale’s right and he startles, turning to look at the man who addressed him and realizing that Crowley had wandered off. A quick scan of the area told him that Crowley was a few desk rows ahead of him, stealing a chair from someone else’s work station and dragging it back. “You must be the other Mr. Crowley.”

Aziraphale turns back to the man and tries to reign his spinning brain in enough to make sense of what’s being said to him. “Ah, I suppose you could say that.” Aziraphale offers in a voice far steadier than he feels. He thinks for a moment that he might genuinely be sick from the spiraling of his thoughts and the racing of his heart. “Though we kept our own last names. You can just call me Aziraphale.”

He’s fairly certain he forgot to tell Crowley that he’d decided they’d kept their own names. He’d come up with it on the fly when talking to Beelzebub and the rush of the whole disaster had completely swept it from his mind after that. He’s lucky to remember it now— consistency is the key to lying, after all— but he makes a mental note to mention it to Crowley and to perhaps  _ actually  _ smooth out a few details that they really should be on the same page about. 

“Gotta be honest,” The man says, scrutinizing Aziraphale as if looking for some sort of flaw or secret. “Didn’t think you were real.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale says, surprised. “Why not?”

“You’ve seen the bloke, right?” The man gestures to Crowley who currently has a chair hoisted in his arms and is clambering down the hallway.

“Of course I have.” Aziraphale replies, a moment of indignity swelling in his chest as this man’s clear implications about Crowley. “I’m married to him. Hard to be married to someone without seeing them.”

The lie doesn’t  _ zing _ on his tongue the way it did the first few times. There’s still a bit of a tingle there, a bit of the uncertainty of it, but he’s able to say the words without choking on them, so he supposes that’s good enough. A little of that offended tone bleeds through into his words but Aziraphale figures that must be alright. Any decent (real) husband would be affronted to hear someone talk about their other half that way, it’s just another layer that makes their lie seem more valid. 

The man makes some face, scrunching his eyebrows together as he frowns and opens his mouth to say something in response but by then Crowley has made it to them, dropping the chair pointedly with a loud clatter. “Oi, Hastur, leave my husband alone.”

“I was just getting to know him.” The man, Hastur, counters, sneering at Crowley. 

Immediately, Aziraphale recognizes the name— Crowley has talked about Hastur more than enough times for Aziraphale to have an impression of him. Perhaps  _ talking about  _ is a bit too kind of a phrase for what Crowley actually does which is much closer to  _ complaining about  _ Hastur and occasionally, half heartedly, wishing some sort of ill will on the man. 

“And you thought I’d allow that?” Crowley counters, sliding into his own chair that sits him directly between Hastur and Aziraphale. He doesn’t say it directly, but what he does say and the way he’s angled in his chair make it very clear that this gesture is at least, to some extent, protective. “I wouldn’t wish a moment with you on my worst enemy. So you can bet your ass that I’m not wishing it on Aziraphale.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale chastises mildly. “Honestly.”

Through all the things that Crowley has said about Hastur, Aziraphale has gathered that they have some fundamental hatred of each other that neither one of them cared to try and change. When probed about it, Crowley hadn’t been able to pinpoint the moment they’d turned hostile to each other, but it was certainly the way they acted now and the way they’d always act, Aziraphale thought. At one point Aziraphale had thought he out to interfere, to try and dig down to the core of Crowley’s dislike for Hastur but had since decided better of it. Some people simply didn’t get along and that was that, there was no reason for Aziraphale to lose sleep over it.

“Yeah, Crowley.” Hastur drawls from the other side of the aisle. “ _ Honestly _ .”

“Now listen,” Aziraphale leans to the side in his chair so he’s able to look over Crowley’s shoulder and directly at Hastur. “This applies to you, too. Both of you ought to behave better than this.”

“Yeah, Hastur.” Crowley parrots back and Aziraphale recognizes his tone so easily. He’s heard it so many times when Crowley is mocking him triumphantly. He doesn’t even need to see Crowley’s face to be able to picture the grin that was no doubt seated comfortably on his lips. “ _ Both _ of us.”

“Piss off.” Hastur sends a pointed glare at both of them before swiveling around in his chair and turning back to his desk, grumbling something that Aziraphale doesn’t care to hear under his breath. 

Crowley spins in his own chair to grin at Aziraphale, exactly as triumphant as he’d known Crowley would be. Aziraphale tries to level him with a stern look of his own but he already knows that it’s hopeless. Nothing can dampen Crowley’s mood when he gets like this, certainly not Aziraphale. 

“You truly are insufferable.” Aziraphale murmurs on the tail end of a sigh, sinking a bit into his chair. 

“You’ve been saying that for years.” Crowley points out, leaning forward to kick on his computer. It’s perhaps the first time Aziraphale has ever seen him actually do any sort of work and it’s such a shock that Aziraphale almost comments on it. “Yet here you are, sharing my desk with me.”

“Will you just hurry up and get your work done?”

Crowley starts to say something in response when the phone on his desk rings. With an exaggerated sigh he glances at the number on the screen. Whoever it is, he apparently needs to take it because he lets out a long groan and throws his head back on his shoulders, as dramatic as ever. Aziraphale watches as Crowley snags the phone, his eyes pinched shut behind his glasses and holds the receiver up to his ear, mumbling something that barely passes as a greeting.

A moment passses and Crowley leans forward, reaching for a sheet of paper and scrambling around the desk for a pen. When he doesn’t find one, he reaches across the aisle and snags one off of Hastur’s desk without any hesitation and certainly without asking. Hastur tries to swipe it back but Crowley’s too fast and he’s already writing something down while making noise of the affirmative as he listens. 

“I would apologize for him.” Aziraphale says around Crowley and Hastur immediately gives him all of his attention. “But I fear it would do no good. He’s not one to change, you see.”

“You got that right. Known the bastard for years and he’s no less of an ass now than he was then.” Hastur grumbles. There’s a moment where the only sounds are Crowley’s half words and the faded noises of background conversations and then Hastur hones in on Aziraphale again. “How’d you two meet, anyways?”

“What? Oh.” Aziraphale wracks his brain for some sort of answer to that, some story that’s easy to remember and maintain. Nothing comes to mind. So he decides to stick with the truth— or a modified version of the truth, anyways. Close enough to be able to remember it. “We met at a writing conference, actually. Met at one of the lectures and hit it off immediately.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

“Pardon me?” Aziraphale tries not to feel the way his heart stops in his chest, the way his stomach drops to his feet. “I am very much  _ not _ lying and I do not appreciate your accusation.”

“Nobody gets along with him right off the bat.” Hastur jerks his head towards Crowley to indicate who he was talking about, as if Aziraphale could have somehow forgotten. “The bastard’s an acquired taste.”

Aziraphale takes a deep breath, trying not to make it conspicuous or obviously relieved. He lets it out slowly, every nerve in his body feeling like it’s trembling under his skin. This was going to be much harder than he thought. “I suppose I just acquired it faster than most people.”

It’s feeling like this lie gets harder and harder by the second. Aziraphale feels like he’s had at least three moments of bitter realization that this is going to be much more difficult than he anticipated. It’s alarming to him the way it seems to keep sucking them further and further in, like some black hole that they can’t escape. 

“Which one of you proposed?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Which one of you proposed?” Hastur repeats slowly and deliberately. “My guess is you. Can’t imagine him doing something romantic.”

“I— well, that is—” Aziraphale scrambles for any words at all. At this point, he hardly even cares if it’s coherent. Spluttering has to be better than the long, awkward pause that was threatening to devour the rest of the night. “That’s rather personal.” He finally manages to get out, the words threatening to stick in his throat and choke him. “Wouldn’t you say?”

Unsurprisingly, Hastur doesn’t find much confidence in Aziraphale’s words, his brows drawing together and his eyes narrowing. “When did you get married?”

“Well, you see, we—”

“ _ Where _ did you get married?”

“It’s just that—”

“What about your honeymoon?”

“We—”

“Hastur.” Crowley cuts in suddenly. Aziraphale hadn’t even heard him hang up the phone, hadn’t noticed the silence that surrounded them once Crowley had stopped talking to whoever it had been. “I want you to know I mean this as rudely as possible.  _ Fuck off _ .”

“I was just—”

“Being a complete wanker?” Crowley supplies for him. “I noticed.”

“Oh fuck off.”

Crowley turns his back purposely on Hastur, turning to look at Aziraphale over the rim of his glasses. There’s a question in his eyes and Aziraphale shakes his head a little. With a particularly large frown, Crowley sloppily folds the piece of paper he’d just written on and shoves it in his pocket before standing up abruptly and reaching a hand out for Aziraphale.

“Let’s go, angel. I’m sick of sharing you with the trash.”

Aziraphale takes the hand that’s offered to him and allows Crowley to hoist him to his feet. He feels a little better almost immediately, just the movement working out some of the anxious energy and the opportunity for an escape the breath of fresh air that he needs. Crowley shoves his stolen chair haphazardly under his desk, clearing a space for Aziraphale to walk. Aziraphale moves carefully through the newly vacated area and into the aisle, his hand still in Crowley’s as he heads back towards the elevator, his legs itching with the need to hustle there.

They’re about halfway down the aisle, the freedom so close that Aziraphale can taste it on his tongue, when Hastur stops them. “I will find out what’s going on here. You mark my words.”

“I believe I marked them once already.” Crowley spits back and there’s a level of genuine annoyance in his tone that catches even Aziraphale off guard. “But in case that wasn’t clear enough for you—”

Before Aziraphale really knows what’s happening, he feels his hand being tugged. He turns to face Crowley, the question rising to the tip of his tongue, only to find Crowley’s hand reaching up for his face. Suddenly his cheek is being cradled in Crowley’s palm and Crowley is leaning down to kiss him, to claim him in front of Hastur and the rest of the office. Crowley is setting the standard and building the fundamental blocks that the rest of their lie needs to sit upon. 

So Aziraphale does the only reasonable thing he can do in this moment: he kisses back. He tilts his chin up to slot his lips more easily against Crowley’s and his free hand finds its way to the small of Crowley’s back, pulling him closer so that their chests are flushed. Aziraphale can feel a few stray hairs brushing his cheek as Crowley shifts his head the slightest bit to kiss him deeper and it tickles in a way that’s quite exciting. 

It only lasts for a moment— it’s just a show kiss, after all. Slowly Crowley pulls away, blinking his eyes open behind his sunglasses and Aziraphale has a moment of feeling dazed. It takes him a long second to realize that Crowley has released his cheek and is instead using that same hand to make a rather vulgar gesture at Hastur. With a gasp and a grumble, Aziraphale reaches out to snatch Crowley’s hand away, chastising him immediately for his poor behavior. Crowley laughs, bends down to kiss him a second time and then whisks him away into the elevator without saying a single thing.

* * *

Crowley trails Aziraphale into the lobby of his flat, grumbling the entire way. The sky had been overcast when they’d left the office but he hadn’t thought anything of it, too caught up in the triumph of shutting Hastur the fuck up and the thrill of not just kissing Aziraphale, but kissing Aziraphale  _ publicly _ thrumming through his veins. He’d nearly whooped when they made it outside and slid into the Bentley and he’d been so distracted he was barely able to follow Aziraphale’s directions to his flat.

Aziraphale had made some snide remark about how a husband should know the way to their spouse’s flat only for Crowley to shut him down by insisting that spouses tended to live together. That had stopped any further remarks Aziraphale might have been considering making and they’d rode the rest of the way to the flat in mostly companionable silence. 

The spots outside the flat had all been taken and so Crowley had been forced to park the Bentley a few blocks off and the two of them had committed to walking the short remaining distance. It had all been fine in theory. In fact, it had been fine in practice, too, the first block going about as smoothly as anything possibly could. But then, just like that, everything had gone to hell.

The sky had opened up above them, the dark clouds turning from vaguely worrisome to downright threatening in a matter of moments. They barely even had a chance to realize it was raining before they were soaked to the bone, the rain cascading down on them unforgivingly. Together they had hustled the small remaining distance, the late fall rain so cold it felt like needles digging into their skin. They had reached the flat and Crowley had yanked the door open, all but shoving Aziraphale inside before following him with a few choice words tumbling off of his lips.

“Oh darling,” Aziraphale murmured, hands fluttering around Crowley as if there was something he could do just standing there in the lobby. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“S’not your fault, angel.” Crowley grumbled, reaching up to pull the tie out of his hair. The top half of his hair that he normally left up in a bun comes tumbling down, wet and dripping onto his shoulders. The heat is on in the building but it’s not enough to fight off the bone deep chill that comes with Crowley’s entirely soaked outfit. “You’re soaked too.”

Aziraphale bites the corner of his lip and surveys Crowley as he reaches up to wring out his hair now that it’s all free. It creates a small puddle on the tile floor that he should probably feel bad about. He would if his dripping clothes weren’t already doing a good job at creating a puddle without any extra help from him. Crowley shivers as he runs his fingers through his wet hair, pushing it out of his face. 

The movement of it all seems to finally snap Aziraphale back to the moment. “My flat! Oh we need to hurry. I can get you a towel! Perhaps a shirt to change into.”

“You don’t need to go to the trouble—“

“Shush, my dear.” Aziraphale reaches out to gently wrap a hand around one of Crowley’s wrists, pulling him down the hall and towards his flat, Crowley assumes. 

Crowley goes willingly, his wet shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. If any neighbors were to walk out of their flats right now, they’d get quite the sight. Crowley’s hair is limp as it falls around his face and kisses his shoulders, his already tight clothes plastered to his body. Aziraphale’s hair on the other hand, seemed to curl even tighter before, clinging to his head in perfect short ringlets. His clothes hung limp off his body, leaving a trail of water behind him as he walked, too. They were certainly a pair— a pair of disasters. 

The bustle down the hallway together, still connected as Aziraphale guides them. They finally reach a door and Aziraphale makes expert work of the lock, throwing the door open and gesturing for Crowley to enter. Crowley does, stopping just in the doorway to discard his soaked shoes and to peel off his saturated shirt. Aziraphale basically zooms past him, promising to be back in just a moment with a towel. Crowley takes the moment he’s left alone to set down his bag and survey the place. 

He is wildly unsurprised to find shelf after shelf of book, both pleasure books and educational books alike, lined up next to each other. In fact, there’s so many books that they’re bleeding out of the shelves entirely and forming haphazard stacks all throughout the flat. Crowley gets the distinct impression that a single gust of gentle wind through an open window would be enough to knock them all over. 

Aziraphale rushes back with some sort of fabric grasped in each hand. “Here you are, darling. Please dry off and get warm. I have this extra shirt for you to change into.”

Crowley accepts the towel that’s offered to him, unfolding it and throwing it over his head. He can’t see Aziraphale as he scrubs the towel across his hair to try and dry it, but he knows that Aziraphale can hear him even if he can’t see him. “Don’t worry about it, angel. The towel is enough.”

“Don’t be stubborn.” Aziraphale chastises. Crowley can hear him moving around in front of him and then he hears the distinct sound of something wet hitting the floor. Through the towel, Crowley can just barely see some of the floor and it allows him to make out the shape of what Crowley thinks is Aziraphale’s wet jacket. “You need to warm up so you don’t get a cold.”

“I never get sick.” Crowley protests, moving to wipe the towel over his face, working around his sunglasses as much as he can. 

The shuffling on Aziraphale’s end continues and Crowley doesn’t think much of it until the moment he feels hands at the collar of his shirt, gentle but unwavering. Crowley’s hands still and his entire body freezes. Slowly, so slowly he almost isn’t sure he’s moving at all, Crowley pulls the towel far enough back to allow him to see Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale is much closer than Crowley had anticipated, his face just a few inches away, his blue eyes earnest and trained on Crowley. 

“May I?” He breathes.

Crowley is helpless to do anything but nod, his entire body alight.

Aziraphale works diligently, unbuttoning each button of Crowley’s shirt one at a time, slowly working down his torso. Crowley isn’t honestly sure he’s breathing as it happens, every single part of the world that isn’t related to Aziraphale and this moment completely nonexistent to him. With each button that comes undone, the air manages to nip at Crowley’s exposed skin and he can’t stop the shiver that wracks down his body when Aziraphale reaches the final button, peeling the wet shirt away from his torso and exposing the entire upper half of his body.

They stand suspended in this moment, Aziraphale’s hands still gripping the ends of Crowley’s shirt and Crowley’s hands hovering somewhere in the air between them, not touching Aziraphale but still within the vicinity. Aziraphale breaks their charged eye contact long enough to drag his gaze down Crowley’s chest, down to his abdomen, taking in the whole of him as it’s not exposed. Crowley shudders a second time under the heat of Aziraphale’s gaze, completely forgetting about the cold while he waits for anything to happen.

Carefully, slowly so as if he were trying not to scare either of them off, Aziraphale drops one end of Crowley’s shirt and moves to smooth that hand over Crowley’s stomach. His touch is warm, a fire that burns Crowley all the way down to his very core, leaving him a pile of charred ashes in its wake. Crowley sucks in a breath as Aziraphale’s hand trails upwards, palm caressing his abdomen and then his chest, skirting across his ribs and all the way up to his shoulder. As he reaches the collar of Crowley’s shirt again, Aziraphale takes in a shaky breath of his own, glancing up to meet Crowley’s gaze again as he gently pushes the shirt off of that shoulder.

Crowley’s arm falls to his side to make it easier for Aziraphale and the towel falls off of his head and hits the ground with a dull  _ thud _ . He can feel the strands of his hair curling around his face, tickling his cheek bones and just barely grazing the underside of his chin and Aziraphale’s second hand reaches up to push a few of the pieces away. Every single atom of Crowley’s body is fully present for this moment as Aziraphale tucks the hair behind his ear, gently slipping his hand down Crowley’s arm as he slides half of the shirt off of his body completely.

His one arm is free of the shirt and Aziraphale switches hands to push his shirt off of the other side. Crowley’s eyes stay locked on Aziraphale’s face, taking in the pink of his cheeks, the way he’s biting the corner of his lip, the way his eyelids flutter when his fingers graze Crowley’s bare skin. It’s almost too much to handle, the tension building to a crescendo between the two of them. Crowley feels it in his chest, beating against his ribs like a set of drums , banging around inside of him in an attempt to burst free and scream at the top of its lungs. 

It only takes a moment for his second arm to be free and his shirt joins the towel on the floor. Their eyes lock again and Crowley swears there is actual electricity sizzling in the air between them. He starts to lean closer, just a fraction, no idea what he’s doing and also no idea how to stop himself from doing it. Aziraphale leans the tiniest bit closer too, one of his hands flat against Crowley’s chest. Belatedly Crowley realizes that it’s his pulse he hears pounding in his own ears, racing at an unreasonable pace as the distance between them grows just the tiniest bit smaller.

And then Aziraphale freezes, the hand on Crowley’s chest closing into a loose fist. They stare at each other, and then Aziraphale backs away slightly, shattering the moment that surrounds them.

“There.” He says, and his voice is hoarse, ragged, like he had caused himself physical pain by separating them. “Now you have to wear the shirt and warm up.”

There is definitely something Crowley is supposed to say in response to that, but all coherent thought has absolutely fled his mind. His chest and stomach are still tingling along the trail that Aziraphale’s hand had traveled and he couldn’t focus on anything besides that, even if he wanted to. But he didn’t.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if that had actually happened, if they had actually been leaning in for a kiss. It was a ridiculous notion, though. Sure they had kissed before, but that had been out of necessity. Kissing in a situation like this would be because they  _ wanted _ to. There was no show to put on now, no audience keeping an eye on them. Anything they did between these walls they did because they wanted to do it and there was no other explanation. 

It was just the moment, though, Crowley tried to convince himself. It was the tension that had grown between them, it had short circuited their brains and made them temporarily lose their minds. It happened, sometimes. Crowley was at least a little sure of that.

In the space that follows his words— the space that Crowley is meant to fill with some sort of response— Aziraphale grabs the shirt that he had set on a table just inside the door and extends it to Crowley. Numbly and with no idea what on Earth he’s doing, Crowley accepts the shirt and pulls it on over his head, covering his upper half again. The shirt is unbearably soft against his skin and just a little too big so it hangs off of his frame comfortably. It smells exactly like Azirphale and Crowley refuses to wonder how he knows what Aziraphale smells like. He definitely refuses to wonder why the scent is comforting to him. 

“Thanks.” He says weakly, the sensation coming back to his body in small increments, leaving a feeling of overall weakness in place of the numbness. “That’s better.”

The only comfort Crowley has is that Aziraphale looks equally as shaken as he says. “Not a problem, darling. Now, shall we?”

And so they did. Somehow Crowley managed to wrangle his body and his mind back together enough to drag out his computer and take the appointed place on Aziraphale’s couch. He even managed to click into the document, luckily remembering everything his subject had said on the phone since the rain had ruined the note that he’d put in his pocket. Aziraphale rambled on almost nervously about his topic and the different ways he could begin his article. Crowley participated as best he could, the act of just talking casually and normally with Aziraphale becoming easier and easier by the moment.

By the time Aziraphale was halfway through his article and Crowley was completely done with his, the tension of the shirt switch was a distant memory, clinging to the back of Crowley’s mind. But he wouldn’t focus on it. Not here, anyways. He drowned out all thoughts of it in conversation with Aziraphale, refusing to even acknowledge that the moment existed. Even when he left, still wearing Aziraphale’s shirt at Aziraphale’s insistence, he didn’t think of it. 

But maybe— only  _ maybe _ — when he’s crawling into bed that night,  _ still  _ in Aziraphale’s shirt—  _ maybe _ the memory of that moment resurfaces then.

There is definitely something more complicated going on here— more complicated than just lying about being married. Simple lies don’t end up in him falling asleep in the shirt of the person who, until recently, had sworn that Crowley was his enemy. Simple lies didn’t have moments of such unspoken tension that the air was thick with it, settling deep in his lungs and weighing him down. This was no longer a simple lie. This was no longer something that he kept just in his workplace, something he said superficially. This was now some bigger, more fucked up mess than anything Crowley had ever been a part of and he wasn’t sure what that meant or what that entailed. 

But that was a problem for tomorrow him. Or maybe next week him. Next month him. It was a problem for him somewhere in the future, one that he wasn’t going to dwell on now while he was drifting to sleep with the smell of Aziraphale surrounding him. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Right. Let’s start at the top, then, shall we?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at Aziraphale who gives an encouraging nod. “Who proposed?”
> 
> “What do you think?” Aziraphale asks, his voice a little raw. 
> 
> Crowley feels the echo of it inside of him, his own raw emotions fileted open. “Doesn’t matter to me, angel.” The moment seems to shrink around them and this time, Crowley sees it coming. He notices first that the sounds of the background conversations seems to fade away, and then the people entirely. The world is just Aziraphale and the table between them. “However you want’s fine with me. Whatever you imagine.”
> 
> “Well,” Aziraphale says quietly and his eyes drift away. “If I were to think about it…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. I got BUSY this last week and so I'm barely managing to post this on Wednesday. But it is still Wednesday and that's what counts!! This chapter is completely and wholly unedited as I've literally just finished writing it so I'm very sorry for any errors you might find in it. 
> 
> I know I'm WILDLY behind on replying to comments and I'm so sorry about that! I will get back to all of them soon, I hope, but I've got a surprise in the works for you guys that will require a lot of my dedication in the next few weeks so it might take me a bit to get back to them. But please know that I read them and love them and appreciate them so, SO much!! I'm really excited for this chapter and the next few chapters so I hope it continues to live up to your expectations! Thank you, as always, for all the love and support. It's more than I ever could've dreamed of <3

Aziraphale was not avoiding Crowley.

He was a grown man over forty years of age, he didn’t _avoid_ people. That was petulant and childish and absolutely below him. If he had something to say, he could— and would— simply say it. It had always been that way.

There was _one_ time though— _one!_ — where he had avoided Gabriel. But that could hardly be held against him. Besides, Crowley and Gabriel were entirely different from each other, they couldn’t possibly be held to the same standards. Gabriel was brash, condescending, abrasive. Talking to Gabriel was a specific sort of torture— it was always exactly the same and that fact alone is what made it so unbearable.

But Crowley—

Crowley was sharp-witted and considerate. Crowley listened when Aziraphale talked, actually heard what he had to say and gave him room to elaborate and explore his ideas. Crowley asked questions that were both relevant and thought-provoking. Crowley was deeper than he first seemed, and far kinder. He was also proving to be far more patient and accommodating that Aziraphale would’ve expected. But then again, that was exactly the point.

Crowley was much more than Aziraphale had been giving him credit for all these years.

He rose up to challenges and conquered them like they were nothing. He smiled this one particular smile— only one side of his mouth quirked up, but it seemed to be the most genuine. Oh, and sometimes when he laughed, he would throw his entire head back, hair falling behind his shoulders and exposing the long lines of his neck and jaw. When he did that he was beautiful.

…

Okay so Aziraphale _was_ avoiding Crowley.

He was a man over forty years of age who didn’t know how to identify or deal with any sort of emotion because he’d never really allowed himself to have one. Most of his life he’d spent under the boot of his superiors— the majority of those years being under Gabriel specifically— and allowing them to call the shots for his life. It was easier to follow marching orders, easier to not have to make decisions and face consequences. It was _easier_.

But suddenly this thing with Crowley was _easy_ too. It was easy to bicker with him, to let their petty arguments dissolve into laughter. It was easy to slice into the passenger seat of the Bentley and allow Crowley to take him wherever his heart desired. It was even easy to write with Crowley there, to share his thoughts and his process with him.

That was another area in which Crowley had surprised him. He’d settled onto Aziraphale’s couch with ease, stretching his long legs in front of him and opening his laptop. He’d waited with unrivaled patience as Aziraphale got himself set up and then they’d just— _talked_. Aziraphale had given his ideas, explained his train of thought and Crowley had hopped aboard at the nearest station. He’d made suggestions, tailored Aziraphale’s normal writing style to something more fitting for a webpage as opposed to a textbook but he hadn’t stifled Aziraphale at all, hadn’t tried to shut him down or hide his voice.

And he’d done it all while sitting there in Aziraphale’s shirt.

_Good lord_. Aziraphale put in a _very_ dedicated amount of effort to try and erase that whole situation from his mind but it had been unsuccessful thus far. In fact, every time he tried to forget it, his mind seemed to remember it in even greater detail than before, providing something he hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps it was the way Crowley’s breath had hitched as Aziraphale smoothed a hand across his abdomen, maybe it was the curls of Crowley’s hair that seemed to kiss right under his jawline. Most of the time it was the look in his eyes and the soft warmth of his skin that Aziraphale’s mind seemed most determined to hold onto.

It had been a moment of madness, a split second where Aziraphale’s mind had completely fled his body. He hadn’t meant anything by the gesture other than ensuring that Crowley didn’t get sick. And Crowley really did have a habit of being unbearably stubborn. If Aziraphale had any hope of getting Crowley out of that wet shirt, he was going to have to pull him out of it himself. That had been the only thought process running through Aziraphale’s mind when he’d reached for that first button.

But then Crowley had stilled under his fingers, had moved the towel just enough to be able to make eye contact with Aziraphale. And I’m that moment, their eye contact had been electric. It was intimate and weighted and it was at that exact moment that Aziraphale realized he was literally undressing Crowley in the front entrance of his flat. But then the first button was undone and Aziraphale had seen a glimpse of skin that had never been exposed to him before and all rational thought had left. In fact, all _thought_ had left, rational or otherwise. He was suddenly taken over with nothing but a powerful need to see more of that skin, to be able to touch it.

And Crowley hadn’t stopped him.

He must’ve been caught off guard— it would be impossible not to be. Crowley certainly couldn’t have foreseen a circumstance in which Aziraphale rid him of his shirt in what had started as a well mannered attempt at concern and ended as… whatever it had ended as. Or perhaps he, too, had lost his mind. Perhaps those sorts of things were contagious— maybe the moment was too powerful and overruled them both.

There had to be _some_ explanation because that was surely not something Aziraphale would normally do and not something he had any intention of ever doing again. The whole night he’d kept stealing glances at Crowley, staring at the way his shirt hung on Crowley’s frame. It was as if he were convinced that one of the times when he looked over, Crowley would be back in his normal clothes and the whole scene would be nothing but a convoluted daydream that his mind had made up under the delirium of stress. And yet, every time he looked over, Crowley remained in his shirt.

And so the stress of the article, the stress of Crowley wearing his shirt home, the stress of knowing that it felt like to touch Crowley’s abdomen, his chest, his shoulders— all of it had accumulated until it had been too much to handle and that had resulted in Aziraphale hiding out in his flat, sending one word text responses and pretending he was too busy to answer a phone call. He was not, in fact, too busy. He had barely written a word of his article for days and had barely managed to turn it in by the deadline.

It still wouldn’t be posted for a few days but he was meant to be moving on to his new article and instead he didn’t seem to be capable of moving on from anything at all. The only thing he knew was that the introductory post was supposed to go up today— the one that established him as a guest writer and referenced all of his previous works. The one that Gabriel had insisted upon to make the deal worthwhile to him.

In fact, Gabriel was meant to be calling Aziraphale in— oh, dear, he’d lost track of a large portion of his morning. Gabriel was meant to be calling any minute, in fact. Aziraphale could’ve sworn that he’d had at least an hour left before he had to face down that manufactured warmth over the phone and hear another rote rendition of some speech that he likely had memorized already. If Aziraphale had to guess it would be something similar to _do your best, get your name out there!_

With a bone deep sigh, Aziraphale scrubbed his hands down his face. He knew he couldn’t rightfully avoid this forever, even if it did sound rather appealing. He really did _try_ to be the person who faced things head on and said what needed to be said. He wasn’t always successful at it but he certainly couldn’t be if he never even took the chance in the first place. Not to mention that he was meant to be in the office for the launch of the article in two days, he couldn’t get out of that. If he didn’t go for any reason, he’d be putting Crowley in a tough spot that required Crowley to lie even further for him and that was just unacceptable.

What he needed to do was get the image of shirtless, damp-haired Crowley out of his head. He didn’t have time to learn and name the things in his gut that the image stirred up and he certainly didn’t have time for figuring out how to cope with them. He needed to push it all away because that space in his brain was necessary for other things. Things more… beneficial.

The sharp ring of his phone startles Aziraphale enough that he nearly tumbles from his seat. His phone is already sitting on the table in front of him from where he’d put it down earlier after receiving a dinner invitation from Crowley. He hadn’t replied to it yet but Crowley had said that Hastur had been asking more questions and that they needed to sort some things out. Aziraphale knew he was right which was why he hadn’t said anything back yet— he’d been trying to work up the nerve to just agree to even leave his flat.

“Gabriel,” Aziraphale greets with as much warmth as he can manage. It’s not much. He’d been intending to mentally prepare for this meeting but had gotten so lost in thought that the time had whittled away without him noticing. “How are you?”

“Aziraphale!” Gabriel booms on the other end of the line, his voice so powerful that it sounds like he’s in the room and Aziraphale nearly pulls his phone away from his ear. “Good morning! And it is a _good_ morning! Did you see the email I sent you?”

“Oh, I’m afraid not. I’ve been— running errands all morning. Haven’t had a moment to check.” If it weren’t Gabriel, Aziraphale would likely feel bad for lying. As it stands, he’s confident that he’ll still be able to sleep tonight.

“Quite alright.” Honestly, Aziraphale isn’t actually sure if Gabriel _heard_ him or just assumed his answer and was plowing forward based on that alone. “That just means I’ll be the one to break the news to you!”

“News?” Aziraphale asks, nervous.

“That introductory article on you published this morning, as I’m sure you know. I looked over it myself before it was posted—“ Gabriel laughs his fake laugh, continuing to speak through the ingenuine notion. “No need to thank me, I just want what’s best for you, after all. Anyways, I just called that Beelz-guy—“

“Beelzebub,” Aziraphale supplies even though he knows it’s a lost cause. Unless Beelzebub starts making Gabriel some money, Gabriel will not bother learning their name.

“Right, them. The first round of numbers for the article are in and they’re _great_! Michael— you remember Michael, oversees the university bookstore?” Aziraphale hums an affirmative. “Michael says there have already been _loads_ of online orders for your books!”

“Wonderful.” Aziraphale says, entirely unenthused.

It’s true that he does get some royalties from the sales of his books and articles but that hardly matters to him. For quite some years now, he’s been well enough off to live comfortably. He doesn’t write because of the money, he writes because he has thoughts that he wants to share. At least, that’s why he used to write. Now he mostly writes because he has to, because he has one deadline lined up after another with no time in between to figure out what else he could be doing or what else he might want to do.

Deep down, Aziraphale knew that he still wanted to write his articles, wanted to still connect with people and educate them. That had always been his passion. But he felt like his passion had been pigeonholed into something that no longer resembled what it once was. He felt like his interests had been bent and prodded, shaped into something else entirely and it hadn’t been him who’d done any of it. He’d sat idly by, watching as the things he cared about slipped away, replaced with what he was _supposed_ to care about. They were similar enough, really. Which is exactly why he had let it happen without saying anything.

But this article he’d written for _Hellfire_ — this one, introductory article on something as niche as the oxford comma— had been _so much fun_. Aziraphale had loved writing it, and had found the words for it pooling at the tip of his fingers. Often when he wrote the projects for Gabriel. Aziraphale felt like he was tearing every word out of his chest, carving them from his old bones, bleeding them onto the page. It wasn’t easy work— it was tedious, tiresome, challenging. But he’d practically written his entire article for _Hellfire_ in one sitting with Crowley. Those words had come to him with no difficulty. They flowed right out of him and onto the page. He would’ve easily had it finished the next day if he hadn’t been so, ahem, _distracted_.

“It _is_ wonderful!” Gabriel agrees with far more enthusiasm than any single person could honestly feel. “It means there is going to be more readers! And more people waiting anxiously for whatever you publish next!”

And there it is, the knot of dread in Aziraphale’s stomach. It’s entirely different than the one he’s been ignoring with every text he gets from Crowley. The knot of dread in relation to Crowley is sort of fluttery, almost like butterflies if that weren’t such a ridiculous notion to consider. The one that comes with Gabriel is cold and heavy and has his stomach sinking down to his feet, anchoring him to his spot in this chair at his kitchen table. The knot of dread that Gabriel causes makes Aziraphale feel sick.

“That sounds lovely.” He chokes out because he knows he’s meant to echo that sentiment to some extent. Gabriel, of course, won’t care _how_ he says the words, as long as he says them at all. Gabriel is remarkably good with his selective hearing, after all.

“I know it’s three more weeks before I can ask anything of you,” Gabriel presses on and Aziraphale wants to groan aloud because he knows what’s coming next. “But if you happen to have any ideas of literature you’d like to review next, you know my email address! There’s no harm in getting started early, as I always say!”

It wasn’t something that Gabriel always said. In fact, Aziraphale didn’t think he’d ever heard Gabriel say that. But in the same way that Gabriel didn’t listen to anyone else talk, he didn’t seem to listen to himself talk, either. It was not uncommon for there to be wild inconsistencies in the things he said simply because he couldn’t be bothered to remember what he’d said previously or to check the facts on anything he said. It was this very reason that Aziraphale did the logistics of all of his work with the university with someone other than Gabriel. Whether Gabriel was actually aware of that or not was yet to be clearly decided.

“Yes, that’s certainly a good idea. I will let you know if anything comes to me.” Aziraphale replies even though he had no intent of giving the university even an ounce of his time in the next three weeks.

He had figured that he’d have to claw tooth and nail to get out of his relationship with the university and had expected it to be a process that took _years_. He figured it would still take years but this was a nice reprieve that gave him a chance to surface, to breathe fresh air again. Aziraphale had every intention of taking this break for what it was, grasping it with both hands and refusing to even _consider_ the university until the few days before he finally returned to their employment. If he found the rest of his articles to be as easy to write as his first one, Aziraphale would have the time to do crazy things like _read for pleasure_ and even _sleep in_. It was almost unbelievable to even consider.

He would go out to dinner at restaurants he’s been wanting to try for ages and maybe even take a few more walks in the park. There were so many things that he’d been too tired to do in the past years, so many things he avoided because he worried they would fuel his creative brain in a different direction than the way he needed to go.

“Well,” The smile in Gabriel’s voice is audible and it grates on Aziraphale’s nerves. “I won’t keep you. You’ve no doubt got some work to do! I just wanted to congratulate you! Can’t wait until your actual article posts in a few days.”

“Yes, it is rather exciting.” Aziraphale agrees and resists the urge to pull his phone away from his ear and hang up already. “Thank you for thinking of me, Gabriel.”

A few pleasantries later and Aziraphale is finally able to end the call, dropping his phone onto the table with a little bit of a clatter. He drops his head into his hands and takes in a deep breath. Aziraphale thinks he is perhaps the only person who would gain these levels of success and find them cumbersome instead of exciting. He doesn’t _want_ the levels of success he has, doesn’t want to be recognized, to sell copies of his articles. He wants to retire, to fade out of the collective consciousness and to just live his life.

He wants nights like he had with Crowley the other day: nights where he’s comfortable in his own home, laughing easily with someone as their conversation veers four topics to the left. He wants to drink hot cocoa with the TV droning in the background and to feel content with just that. He didn’t want fancy things, didn’t _need_ fancy things. At this point in his life, the only thing Aziraphale needed was to be able to _live it_.

He wondered if there was any hope of that happening, any way he could reach that point in his life before his best years were gone. It was a depressing subject, though, and one he had managed to avoid for the better part of ten years now. He figured that he could continue avoiding it if he wanted to but at that point it really became a self-fulfilling prophecy and he really _would_ waste the best years of his life in denial.

Shaking the thoughts from his mind, Aziraphale reached for his phone, trying to alter his mood and steer his day back on course.

* * *

Crowley was perhaps three seconds away from lunging across the aisle and throttling Hastur where he sat smugly in his seat.

“It’s not hard to answer questions, Crowley.” Hastur’s grinning at Crowley like he’s winning something. “You wouldn’t have a job if people weren’t willing to answer _your_ questions.”

“People agree to answer my questions.” Crowley snarls back, his patience running thinner by the second. “If you haven’t noticed, I never agreed to answer yours. Hell, I haven’t agreed to _talk_ to you, but you always drag me into that torture anyways.”

For whatever reason, Hastur seems entirely unbothered by Crowley’s mood. Usually it takes one— two _at most_ — snide remarks on Crowley’s part to have Hastur rolling his eyes and turning away. But today— today he seems intent on being the one to get under Crowley’s skin instead of the other way around. He’s leaning his head into his hand, elbow propped up on his desk and grinning his most shit-eating grin at Crowley and Crowley thinks he’s seconds from doing something he probably won’t regret. Something he _shouldn’t_ do, definitely, but something he still wouldn’t regret.

It doesn’t help that Crowley didn’t sleep well last night. And it _definitely_ doesn’t help that Hastur seems entirely too focused on Aziraphale. He keeps asking the same questions over and over again, the ones that Aziraphale and Crowley had still not managed to come up with answers for. He couldn’t make them up on the fly right now if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to. He wanted it to be a collective effort. If he just spit something out on the fly, it wouldn’t sound genuine. Any story they crafted about their life had to be crafted by _both_ of them, it had to have touches of both of them in it, glimpses of who they really were separately and together. Otherwise it wouldn’t be believable.

And since Hastur hadn’t written a successful article in his life, it wasn’t like he was really wasting talent by bothering Crowley all day. Well, he wasn’t wasting his _own_ talent. He was wasting Crowley’s though.

“Sorry I just want to get to know you.” Hastur sneers.

“For fuck’s sake!” Crowley all but cries, throwing his hands in the air. “I’m sorry about it, too! In all the years we’ve known each other have I not made it inherently clear that I don’t _want_ you to get to know me? I mean—”

Crowley’s phone pings in his pocket and he cuts himself off mid rant, turning away from Hastur and digging the wretched thing out. It’s a text from Aziraphale and some of the tension in Crowley’s shoulders dissipates immediately when he sees that there’s more than one whole sentence written on the screen.

For the past few days, Aziraphale seems to have been very annoyed by Crowley. To the point that he seemed to be going out of his way to end conversations as soon as possible and never answering Crowley’s calls. Crowley wasn’t sure where he’d misstepped or how he was meant to fix the problem if he didn’t even know what it was. So, he’d resolved to doing what he thought Aziraphale wanted: giving him space. If Aziraphale was making a point of pulling away from him, the most decent thing Crowley could do was let him. All they really needed was to act like they liked each other two days a week when Aziraphale was writing in office. Other than that, it could be business as normal.

And business as normal was Aziraphale not having the time of day for Crowley.

Maybe he’d gotten used to Aziraphale’s presence in the last week. Or maybe he’d just liked laughing with Aziraphale too much a few days ago. It had been a great night, honestly. Aziraphale had pulled out snacks and they’d just talked back and forth and Crowley had gotten to see Aziraphale’s brilliance in action. It was incredible, the way his mind worked. Aziraphale was perhaps the only person who could rival Crowley in the speed with which they were able to write. By the end of the few hours Crowley had spent there, Aziraphale’s entire article was nearly done and ready for editing.

It was foolish of him to think that night would change something between them, though, foolish to think that something had slotted into place. He’d never minded Aziraphale’s company but Aziraphale had always minded his and somehow he’d forgotten that. And then— and then the whole shirt fiasco had happened and suddenly taken up far too much space in Crowley’s mind. And even that was followed up with a casual night in, enjoying being together and acting as if the entire thing was completely normal.

It would be hard to not get swept away in it a bit, honestly.

But then they’d gotten some distance and things had fallen back into the place that Crowley knew so well. And that was it, really— the distance. They had been getting close because they _had_ to, because they were constantly together in the office as the whole thing got sorted out. But the moment that they were left to their own devices, well…

And it made sense, it really did. They didn’t have to be seen together outside of the office— both of them typically went home to their houses and spent their evenings working on whatever their current project was. Neither of them had a social life to speak of so there was no chance of either of them being found out around town with someone else. For all anyone knew, they both went home to the same house and did whatever domestic bullshit everyone was imagining,

Trying to shake the thoughts away, Crowley scans Aziraphale’s text for probably the third time. The words don’t seem to be wanting to stick in his head, no matter how many times he reads them. The gist of the text, he gathers, is that Aziraphale is accepting his dinner invitation and agreeing to flush out their story.

Fucking perfect. They’re going to figure their story out and Crowley is going to come in tomorrow and slam the entire thing in Hastur’s face and make him eat his own shit-eating grin for all the hell he’s trying to put Crowley through. Crowley types out a quick text in response confirming that he’s still free and telling Aziraphale to simply pick a time and a place. He offers to pick Aziraphale up if he needs to, but doesn’t hold his breath for Aziraphale to accept that offer.

With that settled, Crowley feels a little less jittery than he did before. The tail end of his rant to Hastur still sits on the tip of his tongue but he knows better than to finish it. He shouldn’t allow Hastur to get a rise out of him— that’s exactly what he’s looking for and Crowley will _not_ let him win. Instead he turns pointedly to his computer screen where his article sits half finished on his screen. He can’t seem to think straight and at least half of the words that Crowley knows have completely left his mind.

It’s been a long time since he’s found himself in such a condition. The last time his words had abandoned him— well, suffice it to say that it had been the beginning of the end. He wasn’t worried about that in this case— he could write this stupid articles in his sleep. He didn’t even _need_ his full vocabulary for these articles, they were far too low-brow for some of the more elaborate words that Crowley knew. But still, the act of writing was painful today. The act of _existing_ was painful today and Crowley could feel one of his migraines growing just behind his eyes.

He pinched his eyes shut, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and trying to pull himself back together. It wasn’t like him to lose his cool so drastically, especially over something like a migraine. He’d been dealing with them for as long as he could remember and had long since learned how to function around them. But this one seemed to have sharper edges today, biting into him deeper than they usually did.

If he didn’t get rid of it and get his mood back under control, his meeting with Aziraphale tonight was going to be an absolute disaster. Determined to pull his shit together and far too irritated to stay at work, Crowley stood from his chair, flinching as the chair scraped against the ground in his haste.

“If Beelzebub asks, tell them I went home. I’ll have my article in on time.” Crowley spits to Hastur as he stalks towards the elevator. **  
**

* * *

It had been a few days since Anathema had seen either Crowley or Aziraphale and it was getting long enough now that she was starting to consider it odd. They were both creatures of habit, although Crowley would loathe to admit that fact. Between the both of them, one of them was in nearly every day of the week. Sometimes they got busy, sure, but they were usually great at warning her before they just disappeared. This time, though, they just… hadn’t showed up. Day after day had gone by and still their two respective tables remained empty, hour after hour, customer after customer. She kept looking out the window for them but there was no shock of red hair, nobody walking down the sidewalk with posture so good it made them look nearly taller than everyone else they passed.

She wasn’t _worried_ about them, they were grown men after all. The odds of them getting into some sort of concerning trouble was slim to none. Well, any amount of _seriously_ concerning trouble, anyways. Crowley was prone to trouble because he was restless at the best of times and completely bored at the worst. But his trouble was harmless— the kind of low grade annoyance that aggravated people instead of actually angering them. That was normal, the kind of trouble that Anathema wouldn’t even think twice about. _That_ she could almost guarantee he was doing still, regardless of everything else in his life. And Aziraphale— well, besides this ridiculous situation, Aziraphale didn’t get into trouble. He didn’t do anything that would bother anybody else. In fact, Anathema had seen him bend over backwards for people who didn’t deserve a moment of his time far more often than any reasonable person should. So no, Anathema wasn’t worried about them getting into any serious trouble. 

It was more likely that they were avoiding each other, the weight of their stupidity finally settling on their shoulders. Honestly, when she had found out that they were pretending to be married she had laughed so hard she’d nearly choked on her tea. If she’d been a betting woman— and she really ought to be, honestly, her intuition was never wrong— she would’ve said that they would’ve started avoiding each other much sooner than this. She would expect it to be Aziraphale who came to his senses and realized the gravity of the situation first. It would be Aziraphale who pushed Crowley away and tried to create some “professional boundaries”— as if such a ridiculous thing could exist when you were _pretending_ to be married to someone.

Oh, but it wouldn’t stop Aziraphale. That was how he functioned. He had a mind that made connections nobody else say— plenty of the time nobody else saw the connections because they didn’t make any amount of sense. He was perfectly capable of talking himself into a corner just as much as he could talk himself out of a corner. If Aziraphale wanted to come up with some excuse as to how they ended up like this— some excuse for _why_ this was a sheerly professional decision, he would come up with it. It would make sense to absolutely nobody else because it would be perhaps the flimsiest lie he’d told to date. But he would tell it, and he would refuse to scrutinize it too closely because somewhere, deep inside, he would know that it was one gentle breeze away from crumbling into the truth.

And Crowley— well, Crowley was an interesting case. Through bits and pieces of hints he’d dropped without realizing it, Anathema had started to piece together some of his history. It wasn’t enough to have a clear picture, but it was enough to know that he had been burned pretty badly in the past and it had left him with plenty of trust issues. As a result, Crowley was not one to push back— not seriously, anyways. He might push back once just to test his boundaries but as soon as someone drew a firm line in the sand, he would stay behind it and refuse to cross it. It was interesting to watch the way his demeanor changed without him even knowing it. Anathema had only seen it in action a few times, the way he would immediately back off, practically shrinking in on himself and disregarding absolutely anything he had wanted or been planning on asking for.

It was bound to be an explosive combination, the two of them. As soon as Aziraphale started to set boundaries— boundaries that Anathema suspected he wanted Crowley to cross, even if he never said it— Crowley would adhere to them with far too much conviction. Their dynamic would change and all the power would shift to Aziraphale. From there it was only one conversation away from Aziraphale saying something stubbornly without thinking and Crowley retreating with his tail between his legs, a freshly shattered heart and some wounds to lick.

Anathema sighed from where she stood behind the counter, hands tucked into the pocket of her apron. 

In the same vein that it could be explosive, it could also be rewarding. If somehow— God forbid— they were able to keep their heads out of their asses long enough to actually _see_ the other person, they’d realize how much they have in common and that they do genuinely enjoy being around each other. No matter how much they bicker, how many times they have snipped at each other over the years, the happiest Anathema has ever seen them is when they’re seated together at one of her tables, discussing something far too deep for her over a cup of tea and a coffee. No matter what they said, Anathema knew that they liked being around each other, that they relaxed into it and felt more like themselves. Actions speak louder than words, as they say.

The problem is that, well, they’re idiots. She loves both of them with every fiber of her being, but in the years she’s seen them together, she’s never seen either of them refer to the other as anything other than an “enemy” or an “acquaintance”. What they had was staring both of them right in the face and had been for _years_ and yet neither had ever even begun to notice, let alone put a name to it.

“They’re okay, aren’t they?” Newt asks from his spot on the other side of the counter, staring forlornly at the door. He draws Anathema out of her thoughts and she realizes that she, too, is staring determinedly at the door as if she could simply will them to walk in. “Do you think it was me? Was it what I said?”

Anathema smiles at her boyfriend across the counter. “It wasn’t that you said.” She reassures him for the millionth time. “I’m certain they’re fine. They’re just… dense.”

There’s half a smile at the corner of Newt’s mouth as he says, “I really thought…”

“Oh please.” Anathema laughs and it’s mostly genuine but maybe, perhaps, the tiniest bit bitter, “They’ll never figure it out on their own.”

Newt reaches out to grab one of her hands, giving it an affectionate squeeze. “You should have more faith in them.”

Anathema sighs again and stares out at the street outside her shop. Plenty of people are bustling by but none of them are the two people she wants to see. She loves all of her customers and knows all of her regulars, but both Crowley and Aziraphale have dedicated spots in her heart. Both of them have nestled their way deep into her core and are refusing to move and she wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“You’ve only known Crowley for a few months.” She says, focusing her gaze back on Newt. He’s already looking back at her, his gaze unwavering behind his glasses. Kind, dedicated. “But I’ve known them since before they met.”

“And?” Newt prompts.

And?

_And_ they were different people before they met. Crowley came into her shop for the first time with a chip on his shoulder that was so big it was nearly a crater. He had gone out of his way to be cold and distant, to keep Anathema at arm’s length. Crowley had come and acted like everything he did was simply a necessity— there was no joy, no personality in anything he did. He brooded in a corner and typed away on his laptop with far more aggression than those poor keys deserved.

_And_ Aziraphale had been downtrodden, exhausted, at his wits end for what he even had going for him. He was worked to the bone by Gabriel and too proper to even admit that he was bothered by it. He was the height of propriety, dodging any question Anathema asked him and turning the subject back around on her so that he didn’t have to admit to anything being wrong. 

_And then_ they had met each other. Anathema hadn’t been there when it happened, though she so desperately wishes she had been. It would’ve been so interesting to watch their first exchange, to see the way things inside of them seemed to yawn open almost immediately. Before she had found out that they’d met, she’d known that _something_ was different with both of them. Crowley came in and actually greeted her warmly, asking about her weekend. He seemed lighter on his feet, like the world wasn’t weighting him down so terribly that day. And Aziraphale had come in a few days later and actually _told_ Anathema about the conference he’d been at and how the experience had been. 

She’d been so floored, she’d considered not opening the shop for a few days and perhaps even buying a lottery ticket.

From there everything had changed. They both opened up. Crowley started to plant roots, something he had seemed terribly afraid of doing before. He’d found a routine, a person he could count on— even if he was only counting on Aziraphale for snide remarks and condescending looks. It was a sense of regularity that he had seemed to be missing before, a constant that he needed to feel secure. And Aziraphale— Aziraphale had found someone who could handle him at his worst and not even bat an eye. Crowley had been an outlet for Aziraphale, a way to express his emotions and let off steam. In no time, Aziraphale was ranting and raving about Gabriel, his hands waving around in the air so fast that Anathema could barely track them. His stress levels seemed to decrease to something bearable and it appeared as if he took a genuine, deep breath for the first time in all the years Anathema had known him.

They had met each other and they’d opened up, they’d loosened up, they’d found a sense of belonging in each other that they didn’t seem capable of recognizing. Since they’d known each other, they’d done nothing but argue and tease each other and hidden behind the guise of enemies because neither wanted to look at what they really had underneath all of that— a genuine connection.

“And they’re better together.” Anathema answers after a moment, trying to wipe the ghosts of who they used to be out of her mind. “But they don’t see it.”

“Maybe this will—” Newt pauses, tries to smile encouragingly at her. “Nudge them along a bit?”

Anathema laughs outright, shaking her head fondly. “You think I haven’t tried nudging them? I’ve all but outright told Crowley I think he’s in love with Aziraphale.”

“So why not outright tell him?”

“You’ve met him.” Anathema replies as if that answers everything.

It _should_ answer everything.

She wasn’t afraid of Crowley biting her head off if she said something like that— Aziraphale would be the one far more likely to do that. No, he was worried about Crowley shutting down again, building up the walls between them that she had worked so hard to break down. Crowley didn’t like being _seen_ or _known_. He didn’t like the idea that other people could understand or relate to him. And he especially wouldn’t take kindly to the fact that someone else had figured out something about him before he did. 

“Fair point.” Newt concedes with an inclination of the head. “So what are you going to do?”

“Nothing.” Anathema answers.

Newt laughs in disbelief. “You’re not capable of doing _nothing_.”

“You saw how well it went when you made that comment the other day!”

“So it _is_ my fault!”

“That’s not what I’m saying and you know it.” Anathema sends Newt a warning look and he just grins at her in response. “They’re not ready to hear it yet. We have to wait for them to start to see it themselves and then— then we can broach the topic.”

Newt squeezes her hand again and Anathema is wildly thankful for him. “And when will that be?”

“Soon.” She says with determination. There’s a feeling in her gut that tells her that she’s right but it’s hard for her to tell if it’s actually intuition or just the fact that she’s hoping for it so fiercely, she’s starting to make it a reality. “If pretending to be married doesn’t help them realize, nothing will.”

Newt hums as he considers this, his attention drifting away.

Anathema thinks of Crowley and Aziraphale and can’t help but wonder what they’re doing right now. If she could just—

“Call them.” Newt says suddenly, completing her thought. Anathema startles and looks at him. “You know you want to. Just call them and make sure they’re okay.”

“How did you—?”

“You may have intuition about the rest of the world.” Newt replies fondly. “But I’ve got intuition about you.”

* * *

By the time Crowley goes to meet Aziraphale for dinner, his migraine has mostly retreated into a general headache— something much more tolerable. He did manage to finish off the rest of the day without stalking back to the office and murdering Hastur just to save himself any future trouble and honestly, if that was the biggest win of Crowley’s day, he’d take it. When he’d left, he certainly hadn’t been confident that he’d make it through to the end of the day murder-free.

The air is cold as he hustles inside from the Bentley, hands shoved deep into his pockets. He arrives at the restaurant early this time, finding a table for the two of them before Aziraphale arrives. In the back of his mind, Crowley knows that the last time they had dinner together, he’d stalked out on Aziraphale with no actual intent of seeing him again. He tells himself firmly that this time won’t go like that— even if Aziraphale seems to be avoiding him completely.

Or maybe Aziraphale _isn’t_ avoiding him, he just isn’t letting their deal extend any further into his life. Previous to two weeks ago, it wouldn’t have even registered on Crowley’s radar if Aziraphale had gone days without talking to him. He wouldn’t even have spared it a thought and suddenly, two weeks later, he’s sparing it _a lot_ of thought, _all_ of his thoughts. It’s like every time he picks up his phone, he’s disappointed when the notification is from someone other than Aziraphale.

It’s stupid and ridiculous and he’s gone so far as to actually turn the volume on his phone off to ideally make it less tempting for him to check every thirty-seven seconds. It has worked, to some extent. But it’s also caused him to miss some things. Most things he doesn’t care about and wouldn’t have responded to anyways, but there are a few things that he would’ve liked to have caught the first time. 

For example, he’d missed a call from Anathema while he’d been sleeping off his migraine. He had considered calling her back on the way to the restaurant to check in on her and ask her for that damn list she’d been insisting on since the beginning but his pride wouldn’t allow it. He’d call her tomorrow. Or maybe he’d even stop in and see her in person. He hadn’t been in to the shop in over a week because he’d been busy with work and diligently giving Aziraphale the space that he seemed to be silently asking for. Going to the cafe meant running the risk of finding Aziraphale there and having to make a decision about where to go from there. 

It was entirely possible for them to stay on the opposite side of the cafe if they happened to be there at the same time, not interacting and not even acknowledging that the other existed but currently, that wouldn't fly. Since it had been proven that Beelzebub knew where the cafe was and had, on at least _one_ occasion, come in to grab a coffee, they couldn’t risk being seen like that. What kind of united front did that present? if they were meant to be married— and happily so— they couldn’t be found in the same coffee shop pretending the other didn’t exist. Crowley couldn’t go to the shop and take a seat at his usual table on the other side of the shop and just _hope_ that nobody who had heard about them— which was becoming an increasingly large number of people because Crowley is fairly certain that the introductory article on Aziraphale had named him as Crowley’s husband— saw them in such an obvious situation. Even he couldn’t spin a lie to get them out of that mess. 

No, it would be safer and easier for Crowley to stay away in case Aziraphale was there. If Aziraphale happened to be found there by someone who had heard their lie, he’d have to come up with something on the spot but surely that would be easier than explaining away why they were sitting so far apart. Crowley could think of a few lies right off the top of his head— Aziraphale could tell people that Crowley was out interviewing someone for work, that he wasn’t feeling well. Hell, Aziraphale could lie through his teeth and say he was waiting for Crowley to arrive if he wanted to, it was unlikely that someone in the shop would stick around long enough to see that Crowley never came.

It was just better for him to stay away. It made sense, it kept their lie safe. That’s what he told himself over and over again, every time he considered showing up just to casually see if Aziraphale were there and to gauge his mood. He didn’t think he’d ever miss Aziraphale’s unamused scowl but he— he sort of did. It was terrible. 

A small voice in the back of his head insisted that there was a second reason he was staying away— a more genuine, deep reason. That voice told him that it _wasn’t_ possible for him and Aziraphale to stay on their own respective sides of the shop, keeping their heads down and working as if the other didn’t exist. That voice whispered to him, reminding him that they were always drawn together like magnets, seeking each other out and pulling each other in. That voice knew that they couldn’t be in the same space and stay away from each other— it just didn’t _work like that_. If Crowley ever ran into Aziraphale somewhere, he couldn’t just turn and walk the other way. Some part of him _had_ to approach Aziraphale, to see those stupid curls or his bright blue eyes. Some part of him _needed_ to be near Aziraphale if he were there. 

It had been like that since the moment they’d first met. Crowley couldn’t say, even to this day, what had made him approach Aziraphale at that conference all those years ago. Crowley had just seen Aziraphale and a part of him had insisted that he approach and see where things go. It hadn’t really been a conscious decision, getting swept away in this nebulous of a sort-of friendship with Aziraphale, but it had happened regardless of what he wanted. There were times, in the beginning, when he wanted to be rid of Aziraphale’s attitude, to be able to interact with him without having everything he said immediately shut down. But then he’d started to understand Aziraphale, to see what was going on and that irritation had faded into—

Oh, no. No, he wouldn’t say it. 

Anathema had said it to him once— _once_ because he had shot her down so fast and warned her off of ever saying it again. Crowley was fairly certain that his glares were not permanent and with the current state of events, he could only imaging that she was gearing up to say it again. He should probably prepare a lecture for her now. He should also rethink his plan to call her back.

_“Will you just admit that you’re fond of him?”_ She’d asked like she wasn’t about to turn everything Crowley knew about both him and Aziraphale on its head. 

He hadn’t admitted to it, for the record. Not then and he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit to it now. Even if he did find himself thinking of Aziraphale during the day. Even if things reminded him of Aziraphale or if he found himself thinking of a funny anecdote that he could tell Aziraphale. He wouldn’t admit that they were anything other than acquaintances and now business associates. 

He _wouldn’t_.

The sound of the hostess talking catches Crowley’s attention and he glances over his shoulder to see that Aziraphale has arrived. He’s dressed in an outfit from two centuries ago— like always— and yet somehow it works on him. He doesn’t look out of place, even though he absolutely should. 

“Oh,” The hostess says, brightening as she turns to gesture to where Crowley is. “He’s waiting just over there for you!”

Aziraphale smiles warmly at the girl, placing a hand on top of hers as he thanks her for her help and then he heads over to where Crowley is seated. Crowley stands as Aziraphale approaches, moving to his side of the table to pull his chair out for him. Aziraphale pauses for a moment, his face dusted in pink as his smile grows a little wistful. He thanks Crowley and sits gently into the chair, watching Crowley closely as he returns to his own seat.

“Good to see you,” Crowley says, trying his damndest to not feel awkward right now. He’s failing spectacularly, but he hopes that it’s at least not showing on the outside. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, dear.” Aziraphale replies, smiling a little wryly at Crowley. “Have we been apart so long that you’re resorting to _pleasantries_?”

“S’ called manners, you know.”

“And you expect me to believe that _you_ have manners?”

“Well, one of us ought to. And since you haven’t even said hello yet, it certainly isn’t _you_.”

That earns a quiet laugh and a shake of the head from Aziraphale who reaches across the table to lay one of his hands on top of Crowley’s. “My apologies, darling. _Hello_.”

Crowley huffs and rolls his eyes. He knows Aziraphale can’t technically see it with his sunglasses in the way but he suspects that Aziraphale can _feel_ it. “Hi, angel.”

“It _is_ good to see you.” Aziraphale says. “I apologize that I’ve been rather— ah, _distant_ the last few days.”

There’s a momentary pause that follows the statement because Crowley isn’t sure how he’s supposed to respond to that. He’s certainly noticed Aziraphale’s distanced— noticed? Agonized over? Same thing— but he isn’t sure if he’s _supposed_ to have noticed or if he’s supposed to have thought things were business as usual. 

He thinks admitting that he’d noticed would be too much, too _vulnerable_. But _not_ admitting it seems callous instead. 

So, Crowley settles with what he thinks is the most neutral mid-ground. Or it’s at least the most neutral mid-ground he can come up with in the short amount of time he has before the silence gets awkward. “S’alright, angel. You don’t owe me any explanations or anything.”

It’s only when Aziraphale’s hand squeezes his that Crowley realizes that neither of them have pulled away from the touch. “Perhaps I don’t.” Aziraphale says after a moment, and there’s something akin to determination in his gaze, “But I’d like to offer you some.”

“Well… alright.” Crowley answers because he isn’t sure what else he could possibly say. He’d like some insight, certainly. And he’s pretty sure it’s incredibly poor form to tell someone _no_ when they say they want to share something. 

Aziraphale takes in a breath and lets it out, his fingers still tight around Crowley’s hand. Crowley thinks that Aziraphale is using it almost as a source of support, so he slowly flips his own hand over, wrapping his fingers around Aziraphale’s hand and giving him a squeeze in return. In the back of his mind he knows that this is certifiably insane, sitting in a restaurant and holding Aziraphale’s hand like it’s nothing. But it’s what’s happening and despite the logic that tells him it’s wrong, it feels incredibly _right_.

“I’m afraid I’ve been rather overwhelmed lately, honestly.” Aziraphale begins. “With the articles, Gabriel and all the uncertainty—” He pauses, uses his free hand to gesture to the space between the two of them. Crowley feels faintly sick. “ _here_.”

“The uncertainty _here_?” Crowley echoes, nodding his head to encapsulate the same idea.

“Well, that is— I mean—” Aziraphale stumbles over his words, glancing anywhere but at Crowley. “All— all those questions that Hastur asked, things like that. We have— we have a lot to sort out.”

“Oh.” Crowley answers after a moment. He’s not honestly sure what he thought Aziraphale was going to say but his mind was definitely headed in a slightly different direction. He curses himself as he tries to steer himself back on track while also dragging his stomach back up from his feet. “Right, of course. Yeah. Well, that’s why we’re here. We’ll get rid of that stress.”

Crowley sees the waiter a table over and knows that they’ll be arriving soon. He gently releases Aziraphale’s hand and pulls his own back, lifting the menu to inspect it. Aziraphale takes the hint and looks at his own menu, frowning as he does so. Crowley tries not to think too hard on it. They don’t speak again until the waiter actually arrives and they’re placing their order and Crowley thinks that maybe he should just get up and walk out again, it would have to be less awkward than this tense silence that’s suffocating them both to death. Aziraphale seems equally as awkward, fiddling with the buttons on his coat, smoothing his hands down his thighs and just fiddling in about every way he possibly can. The constant motion of it is almost enough to make Crowley say something but he can only imagine that pointing it out will make the situation worse.

“So,” Crowley finally breaks the silence once the waiter collects their menus and heads away from the table. “You mentioned Gabriel? Thought you were free of him for a few more weeks?”

“Ah,” Aziraphale folds his hands over his lap as his expression darkens a little. “I’ll tell you about that later. I’m afraid I only have the capacity of dealing with one thing at a moment and I’d really like it if we got this all sorted out. I am due in the office tomorrow and I’d love to come prepared for when Hastur undoubtedly has more questions.”

“Fuck him.” Crowley growls, remembering this morning and the way he’d wanted to throttle Hastur. “If he even _looks_ at you tomorrow, tell him to shove off.”

“You know perfectly well that I’m not going to do that.”

“I’ll do it for you, then.” Crowley leans back in his chair, trying to prevent the aggravation of earlier from coming back. “In fact, I’ll do it preemptively. The moment I’m forced to see his face tomorrow, I’ll tell him to fuck off.”

“Crowley.”

“What? You’re the polite one, I’m not. That’s how this works, angel. _Someone_ needs to tell him and you’ve made it clear that it won’t be you, so…”

“ _Nobody_ needs to tell him.”

“ _Anyways_.” Crowley brushes on, refusing to concede Aziraphale’s point. He will absolutely lay down the law on Hastur tomorrow with no remorse. Even if they sort it all out today and go in tomorrow prepared for any questions Hastur could possibly throw at them, he was going to tell him off first thing in the morning just for good measure. “What’ve we got to plan?”

At that, a small smile appears on Aziraphale’s lips and Crowley feels the cold chill of dread again. “Actually, I have a list.”

“You have a—”

“Anathema gave it to me.”

Crowley groans out loud, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat. “Angel! Didn’t I tell you to _never_ mention a list to her?”

“She called earlier to check in! She was concerned that neither of us had been in the shop lately and, well, we got to talking…”

“And she just _volunteered_ the list? Completely unprovoked?”

“Well, I might have _mentioned—”_

_“_ Angel!”

Aziraphale holds up his hands as if in surrender. “We have to get it right this time! Last time we— we got _distracted_.” Crowley opens his mouth to say something in response to that but Aziraphale presses on, his cheeks tinting pink again. “Not that I minded! I didn’t! I— I mean— we just need to sort it out properly this time!”

Not for the first time, it occurs to Crowley that there’s a lot to unpack here. He makes a very pointed decision to _not_ unpack it.

“Alright then, let’s see the bloody thing.” He says instead, feeling a bit of warmth in his own face. 

As Aziraphale digs the list out of his pocket, Crowley sips at his water, hoping it’ll help cool him down and settle his nerves which remain on high alert. Aziraphale has a point— they _really_ need to get it settled. This lie is proving to be more than they can handle but Crowley refuses to let it get the best of him and refuses to be defeated by it. He’s going to sit his ass down, have this conversation with Aziraphale and go in tomorrow as the picture perfect husband and things will— well, they’ll still be fucking _weird_ but they’ll be smoother. One awkward dinner for a lot of less awkward moments in the future. He could handle that trade.

The list appears in front of him and Crowley scrutinizes it. It’s written in Aziraphale’s handwriting— perfectly small, neat letters that spell out a series of questions. The list is numbered and the questions seem to flow into each other easily, as if one would always lead to the next. Crowley wants to shred it.

He hates this, hates all of it. Hates the way his heart is thundering in his throat. It’s all so stupid and he _knows_ that there’s something there on the periphery that’s begging for him to notice it. He’s not going to but its insistence is getting more and more agitating.

“Right. Let’s start at the top, then, shall we?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at Aziraphale who gives an encouraging nod. “Who proposed?”

“What do you think?” Aziraphale asks, his voice a little raw. 

Crowley feels the echo of it inside of him, his own raw emotions fileted open. “Doesn’t matter to me, angel.” The moment seems to shrink around them and this time, Crowley sees it coming. He notices first that the sounds of the background conversations seems to fade away, and then the people entirely. The world is just Aziraphale and the table between them. “However you want’s fine with me. Whatever you imagine.”

“Well,” Aziraphale says quietly and his eyes drift away. “If I were to think about it…”

Crowley waits, giving Aziraphale a moment to do exactly that— to imagine it. It’s an impossibly surreal thing, to know that Aziraphale is imagining their _proposal_ and probably even their _wedding_. It’s an intimate thing, too and Crowley suddenly loses the ability to swallow around his tight throat.

“I think I would have rather liked if it you proposed.” Aziraphale begins slowly, his voice wistful, a gentle smile on his lips. “We would’ve gone out to dinner. Somewhere nice, maybe the Ritz. You’d be dressed in blacks and reds, the color beautiful with your hair. After dinner I should think we’d have gone for a walk, perhaps around St. James park. It would be cold enough to force us together, holding hands as we walked. And you’d be nervous— I would be able to tell. We’re reach the pond and you’d stop us, pulling out the box as you got down on one knee. Oh, it would be so endearing, the way you’d stumble over the speech you had planned, ultimately throwing it all away to say something from the heart instead. You are excellent with words, as it is. And of course, I would say yes, barely allowing you to stand up fully before I’d be kissing you.”

God help him, Crowley could picture it.

He could just _imagine_ sitting across from Aziraphale in the Ritz, dressed in his finest with the weight of the ring burning a hole in his pocket. He could imagine what it would be like to be so _nervous_ , even though he was certain that Aziraphale would say yes, certain that they had something special. He could feel it deep down, written into the curves of his old bones— the truth of their love story. He’d stare lovingly at Aziraphale from across the table, watching as he enjoyed a fabulous meal and barely able to focus enough to hear anything Aziraphale said to him. 

They’d go for the walk after and Crowley would slide his hand in Aziraphale’s, their fingers intertwining as their breath mingled around them in white puffs. They’d be in matching scarves because somehow he can’t imagine them being in scarves that _don’t_ match. It would just be something they had, something they didn’t think about. It would be _normal_ for them to put on their matching scarves, to hold each other close as they walked through the park at a leisurely pace, the sun setting in the distance and the comfort of each other’s company wrapping around them and keeping them warm against the cold.

And Crowley _would_ have prepared a whole speech. He probably would prepared thirty speeches— _fifty_! He would’ve written it and rewritten it so many times that he’d lose count, determined to get it perfect. Because that’s what Aziraphale deserved— a perfect proposal. But fuck it all, Aziraphale is right. When Crowley pictures it in his mind, all the words escape him the moment his knee hits the ground. He’s holding the box open in front of him, ring catching the rays of the sunset, the sole focus of all of Aziraphale’s attention, and all of his words are _gone_. He knows he’s written fifty speeches, knows that he’s rehearsed them in the mirror so many times in the last few weeks that he should be able to recite them in his sleep.

But he’s not thinking of that. He’s thinking of how gorgeous Aziraphale looks, staring down at him with parted lips and wide eyes, a breathtaking smile as he realizes what’s happening. He’s thinking about the warmth of Aziraphale’s hand in his, the comfort of Aziraphale sitting in their shared flat at the end of a long day. He’s thinking about how this is right, this _has_ to be right, it’s the only right thing Crowley’s ever done in his life. He tries to say something but the words don’t come out— certainly not in a beautifully coherent speech, anyways. But he does manage to choke some words out, and those words string together into sentences somehow and suddenly Crowley is pouring his heart out, telling Aziraphale every emotion he’s tried so hard to keep locked away. 

Suddenly he’s telling Aziraphale just how _lucky_ he is to have him, how _blessed_ he feels— and that is _not_ a word that is typically in Crowley’s vocabulary. Aziraphale is nodding along, teary-eyed and waiting for the moment he gets to say something in response. Crowley has barely choked out the question when Aziraphale is already saying yes, tugging him to his feet and kissing him the moment he possibly can. And Crowley loses himself in it, wrapping himself around Aziraphale and kissing him back, holding him close and knowing with unwavering certainty that he has this for the rest of forever.

Crowley loses himself in it— the kiss and the daydream.

All of it just feels _right_. He hates the way it doesn't feel like a figment of his imagination but instead a projection of the future. He hates the way his heart is _longing_ for it— the intimacy of it, the dedication. He hates the way it feels _real_. Aziraphale describes it so easily, like it's just another story he's conjured up in his mind. And it _is_ , but Crowley has to beg it to feel that way. He'd known he was getting swept away in the whole thing before but this— this was extreme. He needed to pull it together, to sort out his mind and to _stop_ , for fuck's sake.

It takes a massive amount of effort to pull himself back to the present, to see Aziraphale staring at him as he bites the corner of his lip, eyes wide with fear.

“Have I said too much?”

“No, no!” Crowley hastens to reply, the edges of his mind still foggy with the daydream, still lost in the feeling of kissing Aziraphale because he doesn’t have to _imagine_ what it’s like to kiss him, he _knows_. “That was— lovely. That was lovely, angel. I think that fits perfectly.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” Crowley clears his throat, wondering if he sounds as choked up as he feels. He thinks his fingertips might be trembling and he grips the water glass to try and hide it. “I can picture it. Even the part where I fuck up my speech.”

“You don’t _fuck it up_.” Aziraphale corrects sternly and Crowley can’t help the tilt of his lips. He never gets sick of the times he hears Aziraphale curse. “It’s quite endearing, actually, the way you’re too overcome with emotion—”

“Let’s not get crazy here.” Crowley cuts in because if he doesn’t, he’s going to lose himself in the daydream again and he can’t afford that right now. “If it’s meant to be believable, it’s gotta be realistic and we all know I don’t do _emotions_.”

“Oh hush.” Aziraphale replies mildly. “Even _you_ have emotions.”

“I resent that.”

Their food comes before Aziraphale can make any more remarks and Crowley takes his plate willingly. He’s certainly not hungry, the butterflies taking up the entirety of his stomach, leaving no space for food, but it will be a way for him to occupy himself. And something to stare at instead of the floor the next time he gets lost imagining some other facet of their made-up life together. That was, after all, only the first question on Anathema’s list.

“Oh,” Aziraphale takes a bite of his food and his eyes flutter closed. Crowley didn’t think it was possible for his stomach to clench any tighter, but it certainly does. “This is _delicious_.”

“Glad to hear it.” Crowley picks up his own fork and sets about moving stuff around on his plate. He doesn’t even attempt to take a bite for appearances sake.

They mostly resume small talk while eating, discussing the restaurant and their menu with the same kind of interest with which they discuss philosophy. Aziraphale knows far more about the restaurant than Crowley and that’s not surprising. It is, however, a nice break for Crowley. All he has to do is hum along, nodding occasionally to encourage Aziraphale to keep speaking, 

And while he does that, his mind continues to run back to the proposal scene. He sees Aziraphale sitting across from him now and his mind superimposes pre-proposal Aziraphale over him. Every time Crowley looks up at Aziraphale, he sees warm eyes and a loving smile. It takes a moment and few strong blinks to fight the image off and instead find a casual smile and kind eyes— the same smile and eyes he’s seen for all four years he’s known Aziraphale, nothing special. 

Finally, Aziraphale finishes his food and orders dessert. The waiter tells them it’ll be a few minutes and his entire focus zones back in on Crowley again and Crowley thinks that he won’t actually survive this conversation. 

“Shall we continue with the list, then?” Aziraphale asks, his gaze sweeping over Crowley.

In Crowley’s defense, Aziraphale sounds a little breathless as he says it and the pink on his cheeks seems to have become permanent. 

“Yeah. Yeah, great. Let’s just—” Crowley glances down at the list that he had pushed aside when the food had come. “Do that.”

“If you have any ideas, feel free to share them.” Aziraphale says earnestly.

But Crowley waves him off. “Like I said, whatever you want, angel. I want it to be perfect for you. And that’s what I would’ve wanted when— when I proposed. So just tell me how you see it and that’s what we’ll go with.”

“Well,” Aziraphale clears his own throat as if choked up. “I do have a _few_ ideas. I had time to think about them on the drive here, after all. And I was thinking—”

_Fuck_ , Crowley thinks as Aziraphale draws another mental image up for him. He’s doomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited on 1/1/21 to add the GORGEOUS artwork by [Lei](https://lei-sam.tumblr.com/) that [Naro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaroMoreau/pseuds/NaroMoreau) was kind enough to gift me for christmas. If you think you're dying looking at the sheer beauty of it, I assure you that I am dying about 100x more. I can't stop staring at it and I did actually cry real tears when it happened.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, now that we’re about as married as married gets _without_ actually being married,” Crowley clears his throat before finishing his thought. “Shall we head to the office and rub our happiness in everyone’s faces?”
> 
> “Are you?”
> 
> “Am I…?”
> 
> Vaguely Crowley is aware that he’s still holding Aziraphale’s hand but he’s not really keen on letting go of it just yet. Aziraphale makes no move to pull away either so Crowley figures that for now, he can pretend not to remember.
> 
> “Happy?”
> 
> “Happiest I’ve ever been, angel.” Crowley shoots Aziraphale his most award-winning smile, a little dim around the edges with the frayed edges of his nerves, and hopes that Aziraphale doesn’t hear the raw honesty in the words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I started this chapter yesterday and finished it today. I think I like it but I have to admit that I am terrified. I appreciate so much all the comments and the love on their characterization, but it also makes me absolutely terrified of messing that up because that's such an important, fundamental part. So I think I'm just going to be petrified for every chapter from here on out as the story finally starts to progress!
> 
> We get a tiny moment of heat at the end. It's really _very_ mild (like maybe a 2/10) but I have still marked it with " **[skip]** " at the beginning and " **[end skip]** " at the end in case you want to avoid absolutely everything spicy! That's how I'm planning to mark all the spicy things from here on out so please let me know if that method does or does not work!!
> 
> All of my love and thanks to Naro who let me send this chapter to them one snippet at a time as I broke down and Bianca who remains an amazing cheerleader and who knows how to shut my worries up. I would not have gotten here without you guys <3

Somehow, in what feels only like the blink of an eye, they’re already halfway through Aziraphale’s one month trial with  _ Hellfire _ . Crowley doesn’t know where the last two weeks went, doesn’t feel like he really lived them at all. It’s all some sort of hazy fog— like the tail ends of a dream that he didn’t quite live, no matter how vividly real it felt. The only bits of it he remembers with stark enough clarity to be certain they happened are the bits where he kissed Aziraphale. And definitely that part with the wet shirt. That moment lives in his mind on repeat no matter how much he tries to push it away. And even if his mind weren’t clinging to that moment like a lifeline he hadn’t known he needed, he did still have Aziraphale’s shirt— currently tossed on his bed because Crowley may or may not have spent the last week sleeping in it. Solely because it’s comfortable—  _ only _ for that reason.

There’s also the times he’s held Aziraphale’s hand, and the breathless way Aziraphale laughs. And his words  _ I think I may end up very surprised by you—  _ well those words just haunted him but in the best way. In truth, he did actually remember the entirety of the two weeks— or at least, the parts where he was with Aziraphale. Those were seared into his memory, written into his bones, ingrained in him in a way that he simply could not get rid of. It was just the  _ rest _ of the two weeks that he didn’t really remember. He couldn’t say what a single article he wrote was about and he certainly hadn’t been tracking any statistics. But he hadn’t been yelled at, either, so he figured that he must’ve still been performing at his peak. Which, honestly, was impressive given how he’d been nothing but wrapped up in Aziraphale and this lie for two weeks. 

_ Regardless _ , the two weeks have passed and he’s standing in the face of two more weeks before this whole thing can come to an end. Has to come to an end. A week and a half, really. Well, not quite. A week and— Crowley mentally counts the days as he opens the door to Aziraphale’s building and heads down the familiar hallway to Aziraphale’s flat— five days. He tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut with each step and convince himself that it has nothing to do with the fact that their time together is ticking down— they have lived more of it than they have ahead of them. He tries to tell himself that he’s not going to miss— whatever this is, whatever weird limbo he has found himself in. He  _ tries _ , even though this weird mobius state they’ve been in for two weeks has actually been sort of— fun.

It’s fucked up, honestly. It’s really sort of twisted that he’s been enjoying this lie, enjoying driving Aziraphale to work on the mornings that they’re both in the office. He’s enjoyed the late nights spent together in their flats, working on their respective articles until eventually they get so far sidetracked that their writing is completely forgotten. He even enjoyed watching some movies with Aziraphale— even if Aziraphale had spent the better portion of the movie time complaining about how it simply wasn’t a good adaptation of the book. He just  _ enjoyed Aziraphale _ and that was such a dangerous thought that Crowley could scarcely allow himself to even have it. Because what the fuck did he actually have? Certainly not Aziraphale, not actually. He had a lie shaped like a fake marriage and a bitter taste on the back of his tongue when he thought about the fact that this was going to be ending soon.

Because it was. It had to. It was a stupid arrangement that had gotten them through two weeks. It had to carry them through two more and then that was it, the ending. They had started abruptly and they were no doubt going to end just as abruptly and Crowley was just going to be standing there with the ground charred around his feet after the bomb had been dropped, the edges of his heart singed no matter how deeply he tried to bury it.

He was suddenly going to find his flat empty at night, have an extra mug in his kitchen that never got any use. He was going to have to put away his extra blanket because there wouldn’t be anyone there to use it. It was strange, the way it opened up a hollow ache inside of him, the way it tore him apart, shredded him to bits and left him feeling completely empty at just the thought of it. 

So  _ no _ , he wasn’t thinking about that. He couldn’t think about that. And that was absolutely not the reason his stomach was sinking to his feet with each step, as if he’d eaten lead for breakfast. It sort of felt like he had, really.

The problem is that the feeling very well may  _ not _ be related to that fact that everything was going to end soon and instead could very easily be because of the box in his pocket that weighs far more than it has any right to weigh. The damn thing feels like it weighs more than Crowley’s leaden stomach and it’s honestly surprising that box isn’t dragging him down and anchoring him in place, preventing him from making it to Aziraphale’s door at all. Crowley’s nerves feel alight with just the knowledge of its existence and he’s already certain that he’s not going to be able to get the words out when the time comes. It doesn’t matter that he spent all night thinking about how, exactly, to present the idea to Aziraphale so it seems logical and not at all the last-ditch effort of a desperate man. Because Crowley was not a desperate man and this was logical, even if the implications of it made him feel like it was twisted the other way around.

At least he now knows that Aziraphale expects that of him. And apparently finds it endearing. Add that to the box of things Crowley can’t afford to think about at this moment if he wants to have any hope of getting through the next ten minutes. The words sizzle on the tip of his tongue, nearly searing them and he’s anxious to get them out, to just get the whole moment over with, but he knows it can’t possibly be as easy as that. Nothing in his life is ever as easy as that, certainly not where Aziraphale is pertained. In fact, everything with Aziraphale is the  _ opposite _ of easy.

Except that isn’t true. Being around Aziraphale is actually quite easy, it’s just the situation they’ve found themselves in that isn’t easy at all. It’s some sort of impossible puzzle, Crowley can’t possibly untangle the strings of this mess enough to distinguish where one thing ends and the next begins and for that very reason this is both the easiest and the hardest thing he’s ever been involved in. It doesn’t make a lick of sense, he knows that, and he’s resolved to just accept that fact and move on.

Aziraphale’s flat comes into view and Crowley forces himself to knock before he loses any amount of courage he’s found. There’s not much courage to speak of, so if he doesn’t just get this over with, he’s going to lose his nerve completely. And there is a reason— there really is. He’s doing this because he  _ knows _ it will save them more trouble in the long run. 

The door swings open and Aziraphale is on the other side, the loose ends of his bow tie in his hand as he gestures for Crowley to come in. “Good morning, darling. You’re quite punctual.”

Crowley forces his gaze to go anywhere other than the bow tie and the exposed strip of skin that he can see underneath it where the shirt isn’t quite buttoned together yet. He doesn’t spare a thought to why his eyes are drawn there and instead uses what little brain power he still has to avoid looking there, lest his throat go completely dry and the words abandon him even sooner than he anticipates. “Yeah, well, I figured there were a few things we needed to talk about so I should get here early so we could… do that.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale steps back into the living room, tying his bow tie in a mirror that sits above an end table. Most of the table is covered in books so there’s not much space, but there seems to be a perfectly Aziraphale-shaped gap in the books that allows him to work flawlessly and with practiced ease. “I thought we had discussed everything already?”

“We did, yeah.” Crowley hedges and he feels like he’s free falling, like he just jumped out of a plane and he’s waiting for the impact. “But there’s— well there’s one more thing that I think we need.”

It’s now or never, sink or swim. Crowley is fairly certain he’s already sinking, the weight of the goddamn box dragging him to the bottom of the ocean, deeper, deeper, deeper until he’s too deep to be rescued.

Somehow, with no inconsiderable amount of trembling, his fingers close around the box where it sits in his pocket and he draws it out, extending it to Aziraphale without opening it and certainly without looking at it. Aziraphale pauses, his hands still holding the ends of his bow tie, and he meets Crowley’s gaze in the mirror. The moment seems to stretch on forever— six thousand years could have passed in the time it takes for Aziraphale to finally turn around and take the box that’s being offered to him. 

It feels like every atom in the entire universe has stopped moving, time slowing to a near standstill as Aziraphale, with more care than anything in the world, opens the box and looks at what's inside. Crowley is fairly certain he isn’t breathing, can’t get in a single breath to save his life as he watches Aziraphale take one hand and delicately trace the contents of the box, lips parting slightly in wonder.

“Rings?” He finally says, his blue eyes raising to meet Crowley’s gaze.

This is the moment Crowley has been preparing for, the moment where he’s meant to explain  _ why _ this is a perfectly logical idea. But, just as he’d known they would, the words flee him. 

Ever since Aziraphale had described their proposal, Crowley hadn’t been able to get the moment out of his head. He’s practically lived and breathed that moment, imagining it with such stark clarity that he honestly almost believed it had really happened. It had been somewhere in the midst of imagining it that he had realized— they didn’t have wedding rings. Any married couple would have rings that they displayed proudly as a symbol of their love and devotion. It would be suspicious if they  _ didn’t _ have rings, honestly.

He was actually rather surprised that nobody had brought it up already, that nobody had pointed out that they’d never seen a ring on Crowley’s finger. He figured it was a blessing— one that wouldn’t last. Or at the very least, one he couldn’t count on lasting. It was the kind of thing that could catch them completely off guard if they didn’t plan for it and they hadn’t gone through their story multiple times and with painstaking clarity only to have it spoiled by such a minor oversight. 

“Well, yeah.” He starts off and it’s really not the best start but it’s also not the worst, all things considered. He did get words out at all so he figures he should take the win that’s handed to him and try to ride on those coattails to a successful sentence this time. “Married— married people wear rings. And, well,  _ Hastur _ , you know?”

Well, he tried. That’s about all he can say for himself as he considers just turning on his heels and stalking out the door. He wouldn’t leave, that would be cruel, and he’s meant to drive Aziraphale to work. But he might just take a minute to collect himself so he could saunter back in, slipping the box back in his pocket and pretending that none of this had happened. It could be a shame he could bury himself under at night, when he was alone. 

Aziraphale would be gracious enough to just drop it, Crowley thinks.

“I see.” Aziraphale replies and there’s a distinct dusting of pink across his cheeks as he touches the rings a second time. “You are right, it wouldn’t be very convincing if we didn’t have these. I’m surprised it took us this long to think of it, actually.”

For a brief moment, Crowley thinks he’s probably gone deaf. Or his hearing is in some way impaired because he definitely can’t be hearing Aziraphale  _ agree _ with him and his hairbrained idea. 

“Right.  _ Right _ .” Thoughts are filtering through his brain and he feels like his limbs might be rebooting. “We can just say that we weren’t wearing them before because we were keeping it private, you know? But the cat's out of the bag now, so why not? It’ll add validity so maybe Hastur leaves you alone.”

“You know,” Aziraphale sounds a little choked up, like the words are scratching their way out of his throat, like he’s ripping them from the core of who he is in a valiant attempt to remain composed. “I’ve only met him one time, but I don’t get the impression that he leaves people alone easily.”

Crowley almost chokes on a laugh, so surprised by the statement that he feels like he might just collapse completely. “You’re unfortunately right.” He says, reaching for the box and plucking out one of the rings gently. “But this might at least keep his nuisance level down to a minimum.”

The ring is beautiful— it has always been beautiful, all the years that Crowley has owned it.  _ Both _ rings are beautiful, in fact, a matching set in different colors. One is a bright, brilliant silver, untarnished by time. The other is a deep, rich copper that almost looks like fire when it catches the light. They were family heirlooms, handed down to him when he was a much younger man. They had always been intended to be for him when he’d gotten married— a choice, he’d been told, to pick which one he preferred and to hand the other one down through the generations. But this— using both of them, keeping them as a matched set—  _ this _ felt like the right way to honor the rings.

“They’re gorgeous.” Aziraphale breathes, echoing Crowley’s own sentiment about them. His eyes are fixed on the copper one held between Crowley’s fingers. “It’s nearly the color of your hair.”

“I know,” Crowley murmurs and he feels strangely self conscious. “It’s not your classic ring so I figure I’ll wear this one—”

“Absolutely not.” Aziraphale cuts in at once, smoothly reaching out to cup his hand around Crowley’s encompassing the ring in his palm. “I should wear that one.”

Crowley swallows and his throat feels tight. He’s not honestly sure how much time has actually passed since he arrived at Aziraphale’s flat and he vaguely wonders if they might be late to work. He couldn’t honestly give a single shit as he looked up and met Aziraphale’s gaze, the earnest warmth in his expression stealing what small amount of breath Crowley had managed to get in over the last few minutes.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.” Aziraphale’s smile is intimate, wistful, absolutely  _ devastating _ and Crowley knows he’s on the precipice of some realization, that he’s just inches away from crossing some line, some point of no return. It’s like gravity, pulling him towards it, towards Aziraphale, drawing him in and holding him down and making it so that he can’t possibly go anywhere, even if he wants to. He doesn’t want to. “It reminds me of you, so of course that’s the one I should wear. I shall think of you every time I look at it.”

And  _ that _ feels like some sort of confession but Crowley’s brain is processing things far too slowly to really make sense of it.

“Right.” Crowley says and he wonders just how many times he can say that word before it loses all meaning to him. “Sure, yeah, that… makes sense.”

That is a lie. Absolutely nothing is making sense at the current moment. Somehow, when Crowley had come up with this idea, alone in his room in the middle of the night, sleep deprived and fighting off a migraine, he hadn’t really considered what would happen if he followed through with it. He got as far as thinking about what he would say to Aziraphale and that was it. He hadn’t really considered a possibility in which Aziraphale agreed and so, even though he had thought obsessively about this since the idea had crossed his mind, he was in completely uncharted waters with no idea what to do or what came next.

“May I?” Aziraphale plucks the silver ring gently out of the box, drawing his hand back from over Crowley’s so he can set the box down. Once he does, he holds a hand out before him, palm up, clearly inviting Crowley’s own hand. 

“I think” Crowley nearly croaks and honestly he’s impressed that he’s still standing at all, let alone speaking. How is this the single most intimate moment of his entire life and he’s sharing it with someone who doesn’t feel intimately towards him at all? “We’re meant to say vows.”

He says it as a joke, to lighten the mood, to create some goddamn space in this flat so that he can move around and maybe give breathing another valiant attempt. He says it as a joke, as something meant to just throw Aziraphale off, to tip the scales so that this moment stops crushing him into the ground with brutal force. He says it in a halfhearted attempt to rib Aziraphale and his strict adherence to rules and rituals, an attempt to shift back to their normal dynamic where Crowley exists only to get on Aziraphale’s nerves.

He doesn’t say it so that Aziraphale will take it seriously, but Aziraphale does anyway. And Crowley is starting to realize that Aziraphale takes  _ everything _ seriously unless it’s very,  _ very _ obviously a joke. No subtle subtext for Aziraphale who is standing in front of him with the ghost of a smile on his lips as the wheels in his mind turn in a way that’s nearly visible to Crowley. And honestly, he should’ve known that Aziraphale would think he was serious. His voice was barely a hoarse whisper, his throat dry. There was no teasing conviction in his words, nothing of his usual insincerity— all of it replaced with an uncharacteristic amount of candor.

“You’re quite right.” Aziraphale agrees and for once, Crowley wishes he’d  _ stop _ fucking agreeing. It’s all his agreeing that has gotten them into this mess. When did Aziraphale stop disagreeing with everything Crowley said simply on the principle that it was Crowley who had said it? When did Aziraphale start putting stock in his ideas, start seeing enough merit in them to act on them? When did Aziraphale stop saying  _ no _ and start saying  _ yes _ ? “It wouldn’t be authentic if we didn’t.”

“Authentic.” Crowley echoes like a parrot, no ability to form a coherent thought of his own. 

Aziraphale, face absolutely aflame at this point, does a really good job of studiously staring  _ at _ Crowley but not actually making eye contact with him as he says. “Would you prefer to go first? It was your idea.”

Yeah, it  _ was _ his idea. His fucking disaster of an idea. Jesus fucking  _ christ _ , Crowley was going to have to forbid himself from having ideas ever again. Which, apparently, was harder than it seemed. Crowley could swear he hadn’t had a single idea in the last four years and then suddenly here he is, coming up with idea after bloody idea, each one dragging him closer to some unnamed disaster. 

Except, the disaster wasn’t actually unnamed. The disaster was, in fact, named Aziraphale Fell and it was shaped like the large part of Crowley’s heart that was quickly getting tangled up in this whole mess. 

“ ‘course.” He replies, like he has some idea what he could possibly say. He replies, like this is fucking  _ normal _ and he’s not  _ seconds _ away from vibrating out of his skin entirely. Whatever bubble they have found themselves in seems determined to hold strong and Crowley doesn’t think he’d be able to burst it even with his most dedicated effort. “Right, yeah.” He clears his throat and looks up at Aziraphale, the copper ring warm between his fingers. “Angel, I vow to be your fake husband.” He begins and Aziraphale lets out a breathless laugh that just spurs Crowley on. The words just appear on the tip of his tongue, swelling into the space between them with too much ease. “I vow to lie for you, to kiss you in front of any bastard that questions us. I vow to read all of your blasted articles and to correct them, no matter how much you insist I’m wrong— I haven’t been wrong yet, by the way.” Aziraphale swats at him and Crowley catches his hand in the space between them.

They both still for a moment and Aziraphale’s lips go back to being parted in that way that drives Crowley absolutely mad with an emotion he can’t name quite yet. He can feel the name of it heavy on the tip of his tongue, though, waiting for the moment to spring forward into the light, for the moment to identify itself. 

This is perhaps the most surreal moment Crowley has ever lived. It has that magical sort of edge that almost makes him feel like this isn’t happening. For a moment he thinks this is just like the proposal— vividly real in feeling but ultimately fake in reality. He clings to that idea as he presses on because acknowledging this as an actual event of his life threatens to just knock Crowley out completely. He can keep a pretty collected exterior in the midst of a lot of ridiculous scenarios but this would be pushing it too far. 

“I vow,” Crowley presses on, the words punching themselves out of his lungs, tearing pieces of his heart with them as they go. He lines the copper ring up with Aziraphale’s left ring finger, the ring hovering just in front of it as he finishes off his vows. “To remind you that there’s more to life than deadlines, to teach you how to  _ live _ a little, angel.”

As Crowley slides the ring home, his fingers tingling with the sensation, Aziraphale lets out another breathless sound and tries to match Crowley’s attempt at lightheartedness. “Yes, the other things in your life are  _ mischief _ .”

“You can pretend to mind it all you want, angel.” Crowley knows he should let go of Aziraphale’s hand, knows he should take a step back, put some space between them. He doesn’t. “But there’s a ring on your finger that indicates otherwise.”

“You always have been quite the wily serpent.” Aziraphale lifts his hand to admire the ring that somehow— Crowley  _ refuses _ to consider this— fits perfectly on his finger. It sits there, nestled against his hand like it was  _ made _ to be there, like it couldn’t possibly belong anywhere else. 

And the color of it looks stunning on him. He twists his hand around and the ring dances like flames against his skin, catching the light at different angles and looking almost like its own entity. The color is beautiful, a bright pop against Aziraphale’s neutral tones. Crowley tries not to feel something stir in his chest as the idea that it reminds Aziraphale of him, tries not to let his stomach flip at the implication that  _ he _ would look beautiful against Aziraphale’s neutral tones.

Every single moment is dragging on for an hour but in the sort of delicious, torturous way that makes Crowley glad to be strung along by it. 

Finally,  _ finally _ , Aziraphale reaches out for Crowley’s hand again. This time, when Aziraphale places his hand palm up between them, Crowley offers his own hand in response, his heart beating so hard in his chest that he thinks Aziraphale can probably hear it. Hell, Anathema can probably hear the damn thing in her shop a few blocks over. 

“Darling,” Aziraphale begins as he closes his fingers gently around Crowley’s. “I vow to be your fake husband, too. I vow to stop rising to your ridiculous challenges so that we stop ending up in these impossible situations.  _ One _ of us has to be sensible, after all.” Crowley laughs despite himself, the feeling freeing, somehow. “I vow to be a solid foundation for you, a place to plant your roots when you feel like you have nothing else.”

And— wow, okay, was he that fucking easy to read? Sure, Anathema had said a time or two that Crowley feared settling down anywhere and Crowley hadn’t  _ agreed _ , but he hadn’t  _ disagreed _ either. 

Before Crowley could think too much on it— though that was definitely coming later, there was no doubt about that— Aziraphale slides the silver ring down his finger. It’s not cold like Crowley expected, but instead warm from being in Aziraphale’s hand for so long. He looks at it on his own finger and it’s a completely surreal experience. The ring is  _ his _ , has always been  _ his _ , but suddenly it feels like it’s  _ theirs _ , like it’s actually something they share— a claim of sorts.

Somehow, without much conscious thought, their hands end up linked together across their bodies, the rings finding each other again, as if they’re always meant to be together like this, as if being separated isn’t something that’s possible. Crowley doesn’t like where this train of thought is leading.

Deep down inside— not all that deep actually, certainly not as deep as he’d like it to be— he knows what this feeling in his chest is. He recognizes the way his blood is fizzing in his veins. Not because he’s experienced it before— he hasn’t, not really, not with anyone else— but because he’s seen enough movies. Even read a few books. It’s cliche, the fluttering in his stomach that feels acutely like  _ butterflies _ .

But  _ no _ , he  _ won’t _ allow this. That’s how it worked for him, how it had always worked— if he just shut his feelings down, they would go away. This had to be the same as always. It  _ had _ to be.

“Well, now that we’re about as married as married gets without  _ actually _ being married,” Crowley clears his throat before finishing his thought. “Shall we head to the office and rub our happiness in everyone’s faces?”

“Are you?”

“Am I…?”

Vaguely Crowley is aware that he’s still holding Aziraphale’s hand but he’s not really keen on letting go of it just yet. Aziraphale makes no move to pull away either so Crowley figures that for now, he can pretend not to remember.

“Happy?”

“Happiest I’ve ever been, angel.” Crowley shoots Aziraphale his most award-winning smile, a little dim around the edges with the frayed edges of his nerves, and hopes that Aziraphale doesn’t hear the raw honesty in the words.

* * *

Aziraphale knows that he’s meant to be paying attention. This meeting was very important, after all. At least, that’s what he’d been told when Beelzebub had asked him to come into the office two days in a row instead of his usual scattered schedule. Beelzebub had been insistent that they wanted Aziraphale to meet the editing team in person to know who was working on his articles and, apparently, they weren’t typically all in the office at once.

The truth was that Aziraphale didn’t quite care who was editing his articles. He didn’t really have any interest in meeting them. As long as they did their job— and honestly  _ that _ wasn’t really even all that important to Aziraphale since he only had two articles left— he would be satisfied. He was perfectly content for them to remain faceless on the other end of the email chain, it really made no difference to him.

But it apparently made a difference to Beelzebub and Aziraphale was nothing if not polite to his very core. So, he’d agreed to the meeting and he’d showed up exactly when he was supposed to, pressing a kiss to the corner of Crowley’s mouth as he’d headed back to the conference room that he was starting to get comfortable in. The entire time he’d followed Beelzebub to the room, he’d had his hands clasped comfortably behind his back, fingers of his right hand grazing the warm metal of the ring that now resided on his finger.

Now  _ that _ was an unexpected turn of events.

Although Aziraphale had to admit that rings were a necessary idea— one he really should have thought of sooner. It was hardly convincing without rings and Crowley was right: it would lead to less questions in the long run. Especially for Aziraphale who didn’t have to really even lie about why he hadn’t been wearing his ring previously. He’d been here so infrequently that people likely hadn’t even  _ noticed _ that his hand had been bare. He could easily just shrug it off and insist that he’d always been wearing it and they’d believe him.

Yes, it was a necessary part of their current dilemma but nothing about it had gone in a manner Aziraphale could have ever predicted. He knew that Crowley had been joking about the vows but something about the idea had struck a chord inside him. After all, he’d been saying since the very beginning that they should really commit if they were going to do this. It’s why he kissed Crowley, even when there weren’t prying eyes. It’s why he reached for Crowley’s hand, found his hand on Crowley’s knee while they drove. If they were going to lie such a big lie, they needed to immerse themselves in it, to make it as real as possible. That was the only chance they had of coming off convincing. 

And so far, they had been pulling it off swimmingly. Aziraphale had gotten to know a decent amount of the staff in the two weeks that he’d been here and he’d fielded many a question about his closed-off husband. As far as he knew, not a single person suspected them yet. So he felt it was this same spirit he owed the rings, the vows. He felt that it was the only right way to handle the situation.

Not to mention that Crowley was offering him something tender and vulnerable. Crowley was opening himself up to Aziraphale, showing the soft curve of his throat, trusting Aziraphale with parts of him that Aziraphale didn’t think he trusted anyone else with. Aziraphale recognized the gift for the precious thing that it was and he wanted to cherish it, to cradle it gently against his chest and breathe life into it. He wanted to nourish it so that it grew into something bigger and more beautiful than Aziraphale could ever imagine. 

So he’d said his vows. He’d tried to tell Crowley that he accepted this gift, that he saw the shadows of Crowley’s heart and wasn’t afraid. He tried to tell Crowley that they were in this together, that he wouldn’t leave. Because he wouldn’t— he  _ couldn’t.  _ Even when this whole situation was over and they were back to how things were before, he wouldn’t leave. Because he wasn’t the same person he had been before and he didn’t look at Crowley the same way, either. No matter what happened, Aziraphale was starting to realize that he couldn’t imagine them being separated, not really. 

And so Aziraphale spent the entire meeting glancing at his ring constantly, reaching for it in a moment of nervousness and just reveling in the feeling of it all together. He tried to focus for a short period of time but the gentle, velvet tones of Crowley’s voice kept pulling him back to that moment, kept drawing him in. And no matter how many words the editors said to Aziraphale, no matter how many poor jokes they told only to fill the following silence with their own bad laughter, it didn’t stop his heart from stuttering in his chest whenever he caught sight of the ring in a particular light, the metal glowing like brilliant fire. It really did remind Aziraphale of Crowley’s hair and the way it occasionally seemed like a crown of elegant fire that Crowley wore atop his head. 

It was, actually, impossible to look at the ring and not think of Crowley. And, Aziraphale was starting to realize, it was impossible to think of Crowley and focus on anything else. 

Because, as it was turning out, Aziraphale’s first impressions of Crowley had been dreadfully wrong. And truthfully, Aziraphale had known that for some time, but Crowley had been so determined to be a nuisance that he’d been able to steadfastly hold to his belief, hiding behind it instead of admitting he was wrong. But now— now that they were  _ married _ and spending nearly every day together, well, the carefully crafted facade that was Anthony J. Crowley was starting to chip, leaving behind Crowley. Just Crowley. And Aziraphale quite liked Just Crowley, actually.

Just Crowley was just as charming as Anthony J. Crowley but in a more genuine, subdued way. He still made terrible remarks that were  _ not _ funny, no, Aziraphale definitely  _ wasn’t _ smiling at what he said, that would be impossible. But Just Crowley was calmer, quieter, gentler. Just Crowley did things like proofread the same paragraph for Aziraphale four times without a single complaint and listened to Aziraphale fret over his word choice, listing word after word until Aziraphale eventually decided to go with the first one he’d selected anyways. Just Crowley was equally as brilliant and skilled as Anthony J. Crowley but Just Crowley didn’t seem comforted by this fact. In fact, Just Crowley seemed burdened by it. 

Just Crowley was the one with the shadows in his heart, the walls behind his eyes. He was the one who was soft, tender, accommodating. Knowing Just Crowley only furthered Aziraphale’s long standing opinion that Crowley was squandering away his talent and brilliance on something far below him but suddenly, it didn’t irritate him the way it used to. Aziraphale was starting to see that Crowley had settled for this career not because he didn’t care— like Aziraphale had always assumed— but rather because he cared  _ too much _ . Aziraphale just wasn’t quite sure what it was that he cared too much for.

It was in Just Crowley’s presence that Aziraphale found a lot of comfort and a place of belonging, even though he  _ never _ would have expected that. It was with Just Crowley that Aziraphale learned how to loosen up a bit, how to put down his computer and actually  _ watch _ a movie. Just like Crowley had said in his fake vows— the words sharp and clear in Aziraphale’s mind, ringing like a bell, or perhaps an alarm— he was doing an excellent job of showing Aziraphale that there was more to life than deadlines. He was doing an excellent job of meeting Aziraphale in the middle, of allowing him time to work before drawing a clear line on when it was time to stop. The more amazing thing, though, was that Aziraphale found himself wanting to obey, to follow these guidelines written for him. 

For so many years of his life, for all of his career, Aziraphale has lived from one deadline to the next, barely existing in the space between them. Aziraphale seemed to live only to create articles, analyses, teach classes, whatever someone higher than him demanded on any given day. He didn’t have time for hobbies, didn’t have time to do the things he used to love— he hardly even remembered what they were sometimes. But thanks to Crowley he was starting to remember.

Aziraphale liked a glass of wine at the end of a long day to unwind, he liked reading books that he  _ wasn’t  _ going to analyze. He liked taking walks through the park and going out to new hole-in-the-wall restaurants. He liked doing all of these things and lately, he had quite liked doing them with Crowley. He even liked opening his door to Crowley first thing in the morning, seeing him look perfectly disheveled, the top half of his hair tied back in some intricate knot that looks purposefully messy and devastatingly handsome. More often than not he showed up with a cup of coffee in each hand, Aziraphale’s ordered perfectly to his liking.

And, dare he say it, Aziraphale even liked riding in the car with Crowley.

He still hated Crowley’s driving— he would  _ always _ hate Crowley’s driving— but he liked listening to music, watching out of the corner of his eye as Crowley drummed his fingers along the steering wheel to the beat of a song he barely even seemed to be listening to. It was just— it was just  _ comfortable _ and  _ easy _ . The parts where they almost died— or killed someone— were not those things but the rest of it was and honestly, if his driving was the worst thing about him, Crowley really wasn’t that bad of a guy.

Which is  _ not _ something Aziraphale would have  _ ever _ expected to think about Crowley.

Mostly, though, he thinks that’s because he had been determined to never give Crowley a chance, to never allow himself to get to know the truths of Crowley, the shapes of his demons. But this situation had made it impossible for him to forge on without studying Crowley and at least trying to examine the contents of his heart. And, dare he say it, Aziraphale was grateful for it because he felt like something in his life had slotted into place and some empty area he had been purposely not looking at was decidedly occupied now. 

“And that’s the process.” The man in front of Aziraphale seems to come to an end—  _ finally—  _ of his impossibly long explanation on Aziraphale has no idea what. There might have been a time in the very beginning where Aziraphale was listening but then he’d shifted in his seat, the ring had caught his eye and all of his attention had faded away. “Do you have any questions about it?”

Aziraphale glances up and dutifully pretends to consider that, even though he knows he can’t possibly have a question on something he didn’t listen to. “No, I think I’m quite alright, thank you.”

“Great.” Beelzebub jumps in, seemingly unaware of just how little attention Aziraphale was dedicating to the meeting. “I just thought it would be beneficial for you to understand how things work just— in case.”

There’s something about the way they say it that sets off some faint warning bells in the back of Aziraphale’s mind but he certainly doesn’t have the mental capacity to unpack that at the moment. “Yes, lovely. Thank you for taking the time to explain everything to me.”

The men on the editing team seem equally as relieved as Aziraphale to be freed from the moment at hand and they take their leave with very little fuss. Aziraphale goes to return to Crowley’s desk— the space he had been dutifully sharing on the days he was in the office— but he’s stopped in the doorway by Beelzebub.

“Your anniversary is coming up, is it not?” They ask with so much nonchalance that it’s actually suspicious.

“Yes.” Aziraphale answers, “December 20th. I do wonder how you know that, though, given that I doubt Crowley has ever disclosed it.”

“You’d be surprised how much he talks about you when you’re not here.” Beelzebub shrugs one shoulder in response. 

And truthfully, Aziraphale  _ would _ be surprised. If Crowley spoke about him at all when he wasn’t here, it would be surprising, let alone enough for him to have shared the information they just recently decided on. There’s no way for Aziraphale to question this without sounding suspicious himself so he lets it go and settles on a much more bland response.

“Yes, perhaps I would be.”

“Anyways,” Beelzebub presses on, “I’m thinking of having a special assignment for you guys on your anniversary.”

“Oh?”

Beelzebub waves their hand. “I’ll explain in a bit. Don’t want to keep you. Just know that something’s in the works.”

Aziraphale decides not to mention the fact that their anniversary falls steadfastly out of the timeframe in which he will be working for  _ Hellfire _ . Instead, he bids Beelzebub farewell and finds his way back to Crowley’s desk, the thoughts from earlier still fogging up his mind and threatening to pull him under.

Crowley glances up as he approaches, the small tilt of his lips the most genuine smile Aziraphale has ever seen on his face. There’s something absentminded about it, like he doesn’t even realize he’s smiling— like he just does that, just  _ smiles _ when he sees Aziraphale. Aziraphale tries not to wonder why his heart clenches in his chest at the sight of it.

“Meeting alright?” Crowley asks as Aziraphale takes up his designated chair on the other end of the desk.

“Quite.” Aziraphale replies evenly, glancing around before dropping his voice to more of a conspiratorial whisper. “Hard to go poorly when you don’t listen to a word they say.”

“Angel!” Crowley chastises, his small smile growing to an outright grin. For a moment, he looks proud, like he knows he has successfully corrupted Aziraphale in some way. Aziraphale knows that he should feel put out by it, but instead he just feels a pleasant warmth. “You really ought to take this seriously, you know. This could be your livelihood if you put in some effort.”

“Hush, you.” Aziraphale glowers at him, the corner of his own lips threatening to tilt up into a smile of his own. “It’s not as if I see you doing much work over here.”

“As a matter of fact,” Crowley reclines in his chair, throwing his hands behind his head and he looks the picture of comfortable ease, like there’s nothing weighing him down. Aziraphale knows that isn’t the case but he wonders how Crowley pretends so well. “I was just about to go grab lunch. Take a break from all my hard work this morning, you know?”

To anyone who doesn’t know Crowley well, he looks confident and even a little cheeky, grinning at his husband with troublesome mirth. But Aziraphale sees the tilt of his chin, the set of his shoulders and he knows something is on Crowley’s mind. He resolves to ask Crowley about it later. 

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale remarks, “I didn’t see you  _ do _ any hard work this morning.”

“You were in meetings.” Crowley dismisses with a roll of his eyes. “I  _ am _ capable of functioning when you aren’t here, angel.”

“Your abysmally empty fridge would suggest otherwise.”

“You saw it on a bad day!” Crowley protests immediately, shooting up in his seat, both of his feet solidly on the ground for perhaps the first time ever while seated.

“Refrigerators don’t have  _ bad days _ , Crowley. That’s on you.” Aziraphale already feels lighter, teasing Crowley like this, laughing warmly as he basks in Crowley’s presence. He feels comfortable, at ease. It’s alarming. 

“It’s full now.” Crowley remarks, staring stubbornly away. He crosses his arms over his chest and the light catches the ring on his finger and Aziraphale feels like the breath has been stolen straight out of his lungs. 

“That remains to be seen.” He nearly wheezes in an attempt to keep the banter going. “I shall give you the benefit of the doubt, however.” Crowley rolls his eyes a second time but he slouches a bit in his chair in defeat. His hands find each other again, seemingly without Crowley’s knowledge and Aziraphale tries not to watch the way he fiddles with it, as if he’s not quite used to it being there but glad that it is. Aziraphale tries not to feel his heart constrict in his chest. “Now, I believe you said something about lunch?”

  
  


* * *

Anathema doesn't have to look up to know who is walking through the door. Something about the way it slams open, a gust of wind chasing the person inside tells Anathema all she needs to know. And if she didn’t already know, the irregular pattern of his footsteps— a sign of his ridiculous saunter— gives it wholly away. 

“One of these days,” She calls as she finishes making the coffee in her hand. “You're going to learn how to open the damn door with some grace.” 

She hands the coffee over and looks up, only to find Crowley standing at her counter with his sunglasses pushed up into his hair and wild eyes. A few pieces of his hair have fallen out of his typical bun, wisps that curl around his jaw. There's something about it that's so jarring, Anathema sets down the container of milk that she had picked up in an attempt to make Crowley his usual drink. 

Crowley was a lot of things and perfectly composed at all times was one of them. Sure, Anathema was getting to see glimpses of the real Crowley and to know him but she had  _ never  _ seen him come undone.

“Anathema—” Crowley says and it's immediately apparent that Anathema needs to lighten the mood somehow. He doesn’t use her full name unless he needs her to take him seriously and a defining trait of Crowley is how much he abhors being serious if he can help it. 

“Hey.” She steps up to him, scanning the cafe to determine that it was just the two of them. She assesses him again and decides to go for teasing, trying to cut some of the tension in the air and to soften him enough that maybe he’ll tell her why he looks like sprinted the entire way here. “Surprised to see you here alone. I thought you and your husband were inseparable these days.”

The look on Crowley’s face in response to that tells Anathema everything she needs to know.

She watches the way his jaw sets firmly, the bob of his throat as he swallowed. His eyes harden, like he’s trying to fight something off, like he’s trying to throw up some walls to keep her out. Or perhaps he’s trying to keep something— a particular emotion if Anathema had to guess and she was  _ excellent _ at guessing— in. His spine stiffened and it was like Anathema had shut him down with the simple mention of Aziraphale. 

She knew exactly what she was looking at: Anthony J. Crowley coming to terms with the fact that he had feelings. 

Ultimately, she should be glad that he finally sorted his feelings out. Granted, this wasn’t exactly the ideal situation but she really was getting sick of watching him sit across the table from Aziraphale, making him laugh and pretending that it wasn’t the best part of his week. She was sick of the way his eyes would scan the cafe the moment he walked in, unconsciously looking for Aziraphale because really, that was the thing that got him to come to the cafe more than twice a week. Before they'd met, Crowley showed up once a week consistently, maybe twice a week if he were particularly busy at work. And then they’d met and Crowley had realized that Aziraphale frequented her coffee shop and suddenly he’d been haunting her doorstep nearly every day without any real knowledge why.

Because Anathema really believes that Crowley didn’t realize what he was doing, didn’t know he was the kid on the playground who picked on their crush because they didn’t have any better idea of how to handle their feelings. She knew Crowley well— as well as he would let anyone know him, at least— and she knew that deep down he really, honestly had no idea. He didn’t read into the snarky remarks he made, didn’t seem to catch on to the fact that he leaned a little further across the table with each passing second, as if he were being drawn into Aziraphale’s gravity, incapable of escaping. He didn’t  _ know _ , but by god, his feelings had been there since day one, written into the lines of his expression, heart pinned to his sleeve for everyone— except him and Aziraphale, apparently— to see. 

That was Anthony J Crowley, after all. He was terrified of getting close to people, certain that any bridges he built now would be burned, just like the ones from his past had been. Anathema may not have the full story but she knew he had some deep scars that changed him fundamentally. He didn’t mean to wear his heart on his sleeve and probably didn’t even realize that he did. But oh, his heart had always been there, beating out of his chest, bleeding for those around him no matter how much he pretended it didn’t.

“I—” He starts to say and then he groans, running his hand through his hair in frustration and dislodging more hair from his already disheveled bun. “I can’t stop  _ thinking about him _ .”

It’s like the words are pieces of his soul, torn out of him and presented for scrutiny, jagged edges and all. His voice is like gravel, raw and rough and she can hear the roughness of the emotions, the turmoil he feels in response to them. Crowley stares down at the counter for a long moment after the words are out and Anathema gets the distinct impression that he’s waiting for something. She doesn’t know what, because it’s not like God is going to strike him down with lightning, condemn him to a pool of boiling sulfur just because he has feelings for Aziraphale. If she were going to do that, she would’ve done it four years ago and saved them all some time. 

“Oh.” Anathema replies and it comes out far too soft. She sees Crowley’s expression harden immediately and knows that she has misstepped. Crowley certainly didn’t come here to celebrate so she needed to calibrate, to determine the proper response and what angle she needed to take. “Well, that’s—”

“We exchanged  _ rings _ , Ana.” Crowley appears to be bordering on hysteric, his eyes about as wild as Anathema has ever seen them. He forces the words out like he knows Anathema is going to ask so he might as well get it over with. “Fucking  _ rings _ .”

“You—?”

“We made up  _ vows _ .” Crowley pushes away from the counter and starts to pace through the cafe, his hands moving restlessly around him as if he can’t quite decide on what to do with them, as if he can’t possibly keep still or else he’ll vibrate out of existence entirely. “This is so fucked. This is  _ so fucking fucked!” _

“Okay, okay.” Anathema exits from behind the counter, coming to stand in the way of Crowley’s pacing, He doesn’t stop entirely, but he does shorten his route, circling back before reaching Anathema. He’s walking with such abandoned fervor that Anathema thinks he might actually wear a path into her tiles. “Wait, you need to back up. What did you say about rings?”

So Crowley tells her. He tells her everything— or what she assumes is everything. And she watches the way his despair grows as he recounts the moments, watching his eyes lose focus as the memories come to mind. He’s no doubt reliving them, his face as red as his hair and Anathema feels like she’s watching the climax of some cliche romantic movie unfold before her.

Crowley’s voice is quiet, bordering on broken despite his clear anxiety about the whole thing. He speaks quickly, words flowing out of him before he can put up a dam to stop them. He tells her about the rings and the vows, he tells her about kissing Aziraphale, about holding his hand. He fiddles with the ring on his finger as he talks and Anathema recognizes it as a gesture of comfort. 

How he doesn’t seem to see what’s right in front of him, she doesn’t know. 

Because he also tells her about how Aziraphale kissed back, reached for his hand, held him close even when nobody was looking. He laid out a beautiful love story before her and somehow he couldn’t see it for what it was. 

“I might—” Crowley seems to choke on his words, just the idea of completing whatever though he’s having too much for him to handle apparently. He splutters, gestures wildly with his hands and stares at Anathema as if she should understand what he’s going for. She doesn’t, so she stares back, an eyebrow raised as a challenge. He sighs with far too many theatrics and leans back against one of the tables, resolving himself, apparently, to getting through whatever it is he has to say. “I might be fond of him.”

She knows there’s some level of tact she’s meant to have here because this is genuinely a big revelation for Crowley, but she can’t find it in herself to handle him with kid gloves. The most she can do is stop herself from bursting out laughing. “Well, yeah. I knew that already.”

“Ana!”

“I know, I know. This is a big deal for you.” She holds up her hands in a placating manner but it does nothing to settle Crowley. His cheeks are still red and his eyes are narrowed and Anathema knows it was a big deal for him to trust her with all this information. But she also knows he isn’t made of glass and he isn’t going to break that easily. He lived through whatever tragedy of his past, he could live through this too. “But honestly, Crowley, I’ve been watching you pine after him for  _ years _ .”

“I do  _ not pine— _ ”

“ _ And _ ,” She pushes on as if he hadn’t interrupted her and the firm set to his jaw shows just how much he hates her in this moment. It just Spurs her on further, warming her heart just a little bit because she knows he could never actually hate her, even if he wants to. And based on the daggers he’s shooting her with his glare, he  _ really  _ wants to. “I’ve watched  _ him _ pine after  _ you _ .”

“Fuck off.” 

“I’m not kidding!”

“Neither am I.” Crowley huffs, crossing his arms. “ _ Fuck off _ .”

A small part of him seems relieved to have put it in words and to have not been rebuffed. A part of him seems thankful that she had taken everything he’d had to say and gone with it instead of picking it apart, prying it open at the rubs to examine the beating heart underneath. 

“Crowley, you’ve been making moon eyes at him since you met him.” She hedges, her smile threatening to grow into a grin. 

This was the moment she had spent years waiting for, the moment she honestly wasn’t sure was ever gong to come. This was the moment where Crowley finally did acknowledge that he had at least a singular feeling and that, really, was all she needed. That was enough to get her foot in the door and it wouldn’t be hard for her to kick the door open in now, barging in and handling the rest from there.

Anathema didn’t shy away from the truth and so far, she had been gracious enough to allow Crowley to remain blissfully ignorant of the truth. But now that he knew, now that the truth was no longer hidden from him, Anathema wasn’t going to let him pretend it didn’t exist or put on some facade to hide from it. Whatever he decided to do with this truth was ultimately up to him, but Anathema was going to force him to make that decision. 

“What does that even mean?” Crowley spits, but his shoulders are a little less tense and there’s a gentle undertone of amusement to his question. “What are  _ moon eyes _ ?”

“It’s just an expression—”

“Well it’s a bloody stupid one.”

“Crowley—”

“And it’s entirely irrelevant.”

Anathema sighs and rubs her eyes, her glasses pushing up onto her forehead briefly. “Crowley,” She tries again and aims for something more level this time. “You have to acknowledge what this is.”

“No.” Crowley shuts it down immediately. 

“Then why did you come here? Why tell me everything if you aren’t going to  _ tell me how you feel _ ?” Anathema presses and she feels a familiar frustration. It was similar to when she had asked Crowley of his past and he had drawn such a firm boundary that Anathema hadn’t dared try to cross it since. 

Crowley seems to be thinking of the same thing and he hesitates and then softens. He blows out a breath and seems to deflate in on himself, collapsing like his foundation has been shaken and devastated. It probably has been, she thinks. Being forced to face a crush he didn’t know he had been harboring had to be difficult. Especially when he dedicated so much time and energy to making sure that he  _ didn’t _ develop feelings towards anyone.  _ Ever _ .

It was like she had been watching Crowley try to sabotage himself for years, watching him try to keep Aziraphale at an arm’s length only to now watch him realize that it has backfired spectacularly. It would sting, she knows, to realize that all of her efforts had been for naught. She could understand how Crowley was feeling, could see it plain as day on his bleeding heart, and that’s exactly why she needed him to see that it was okay. 

Crowley was going to double down on his attempts to sabotage their relationship out of fear. He was no doubt going to SML up his annoying habits, going to do everything he could to make Aziraphale walk away as soon as their time as husbands was up because he was too terrified to allow himself to get attached to someone. He was going to carve his own heart out of his chest just to avoid something that likely wasn’t even going to come. And he was probably going to hurt Aziraphale in the process. 

“I don’t want to put a name to it.” Crowley takes in another slow breath and tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear, slowly collecting himself. “You’re going to tell me that I have to tell him and I am absolutely not doing that. It’s just because of the proximity, the situation— it’s not serious enough for a name.”

“Cr—”

“Ana, please.” Crowley looks up at her with his wide golden eyes and she knows that he needs this. 

He needs to process this further, to realize the extent of it. For now, he’s just knocked the tip of the iceberg, just become aware that the iceberg exists at all. Just because Anathema can see the depth of the iceberg doesn’t mean Crowley can and right now, what he needs is to be told that the iceberg is larger than he thinks. Right now, what he needs is to discover that himself. Crowley needs to be told that it’s okay, that it’s not going to bite him in the ass like everything else has. He needs someone to assure him that this isn’t the end of his world. 

“It’s going to be fine.” She says quietly, reaching out to place a hand on his upper arm. “You don’t have to put a name to it. But please don’t push him away.”

“I’m not telling him.” Crowley reaffirms because he knows Anathema and is certainly reading between some lines. “Not ever. I’m just messed up because this whole thing has gotten out of control.”

“How much longer?”

“A week and five days.” He recites immediately and then winces, realizing just how much it implicates him. “Roughly.”

“Right.” Anathema smiles at him in a way she hopes is encouraging. “You can deal with it in a week and five days, then.”

“There won’t be anything  _ to _ deal with by then.”

Anathema sighs with a shake of her head, her hand squeezing Crowley’s arm, “And if there still is?”

“There won’t be.” He repeats, but it sounds far less certain than it did before, 

* * *

Crowley had returned from his talk with Anathema, arms laden with food and determination steeled. He was going to get through this without speaking a word of it to anyone else. He had sworn Anathema to secrecy and then threatened her just in case she didn’t take her vow seriously. She had rolled her eyes and shoved him out the door, instructing him to get back to Aziraphale and to try and keep it together.

He didn’t feel like he had done a remarkable job of the latter, but Aziraphale hadn’t seemed to notice. They had gone through the remainder of the day at the office without a hitch, and somehow they had found themselves back at Crowley’s flat, TV droning in the background as they pretended to work on their articles. Crowley had long since given up his article— one he was writing for a few days in the future. Beelzebub had shifted his writing schedule somewhat and Crowley was suspicious that there was something coming soon but he couldn’t spare any mental energy towards it.

“Oh, dear, is that really the time?” Aziraphale says suddenly, the words bitten off by the tail end of a yawn. “It’s much later than I’d realized. I daresay, I could fall asleep right here.”

And Crowley knows what he shouldn’t say. He feels the words jump to the tip of his tongue, begging to be spoken but he  _ knows _ that it would be a terrible idea, feeding in to this emotion that he is very,  _ very _ determined to ignore, no matter how much it seems to grow with each passing second.

He says the words anyways. “Go ahead, angel. You can stay the night here. It’ll allow us to sleep in a bit in the morning anyways.”

There’s a pause and Crowley is just about to curse himself and suck the words back in, swallowing the traitors whole when Aziraphale says, “You wouldn’t mind?”

“Not at all.” Crowley raises a shoulder in what he hopes looks like a nonchalant shrug but he feels too stiff, too disjointed and he worries that it comes across that way. “You’re welcome here for as long as you’d like. Hell, I’ll make you a key to the place tomorrow if you want.”

Okay,  _ stop talking _ . Crowley snaps his jaw shut and bites the tip of his tongue because he’s about three seconds away from blowing what thin cover he had managed to find. 

“I think that may be overkill.” Aziraphale chuckles and it sounds a little nervous, but mostly okay. “Plus, I don’t have any of my things.”

“I’ve got a washer, if you need. You can throw your stuff in tonight.” Normally, Crowley wouldn’t suggest that but Aziraphale’s outfits all look damn near the same, only a trained eye would be able to tell the difference between the shades of beige he wears on any given day. Crowley is absolutely certain that nobody will notice. “And I’ve got joggers you could borrow, and your shirt—”

“My shirt?”

“From— from that day?” Crowley feels the words slipping away from him again and he scrambles to grab onto them, to string them together into something coherent and totally not flustered. “The rain?”

“Oh, that’s quite right. I remember now. I had forgotten.” Aziraphale’s cheeks are a faint shade of pink as he looks down in his lap, his fingers fidgeting with the copper ring, his touch gentle and light as he twists it around his finger. 

“Yeah I’ve—” Crowley realizing where that sentence was headed and cuts it off with an abrupt and very conspicuous cough before quickly swerving to the left and finishing that with “been meaning to give it back to you.”

There’s a line between Aziraphale’s eyebrows that shows that he’s questioning Crowley but he leaves the words unspoken. “Well, it looks like it’s worked out quite well that you’ve held on to it.”

“Right, yeah, serving a purpose.”

Aziraphale glances up from his hands and meets Crowley’s gaze, scrutinizing his eyes for something. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be imposing on you?”

“You can have the bed.” Crowley says at once, taking the question as an acceptance of his offer. “It’s comfortable. King sized, silk sheets.”

“Oh, darling, no, I wouldn’t want to kick you out of your bed. You’re already doing me a favor by letting me stay when I’m so tired.”

“Absolutely not, I will not let you sleep on the couch.” Crowley replies firmly, trying to draw a clear line in the sand here. “It’s not a bad couch, but still.”

“Well then we’ll simply share the bed.” Aziraphale states like it’s the only obvious solution. Crowley nearly chokes on his saliva. “You said yourself that it’s king sized, that’s more than enough room for both of us.”

And honestly, it’s not an argument Crowley can refute. The truth was that they were both grown men who  _ should _ be able to handle something like this without it stirring up anything. They should be able to take to their respective sides of the bed, close their eyes and fall asleep. Crowley never sprawls out over his bed anyways, he always wakes up right around where he falls asleep. This won’t even be a change to his sleeping pattern and yet just the  _ idea _ of Aziraphale being next to him in bed is enough to send Crowley’s heart galloping to another galaxy.

“We— could do that, yeah.” He thinks his voice sounds a little strained and he wonders if Aziraphale can hear it. 

If he does, he doesn’t say anything. He simply indicates for Crowley to lead the way. So Crowley does, he takes Aziraphale down the hallway and into his bedroom and there’s something so fucking intimate about showing Aziraphale his bedroom that Crowley thinks he might actually combust on the spot. Today seems determined to kill him. 

“Bathroom’s through there.” Crowley points, clearing his throat and feeling unbearably awkward because he knows that he’s just minutes away from sliding between silk sheets with Aziraphale. “There should be an extra toothbrush behind the mirror. Help yourself to whatever you need. I’ll grab the joggers and shirt and set them outside the door for you.”

Aziraphale thanks him, passing by Crowley and trailing a hand along the small of his back as he goes and Crowley stands in the same spot for a long moment after Aziraphale closes the door for fear that his knees might give out if he tries to take a step.

This, he decides immediately, is utterly unacceptable. He had _ one _ conversation with Anathema and suddenly he was shaking apart at the seams? He wouldn’t stand for it. With a firm mental scolding and a deep breath, Crowley shoved everything down inside of him and set about what he needed to do because he was not about to lose his mind. He was an adult for someone’s sake— he wasn’t some bloody school girl who was going to twirl her pigtails and hoped her crush noticed her.

Crowley set Aziraphale’s outfit outside the door and set about changing himself. They switched after a minute or two and then Crowley found himself with freshly brushed teeth and a clean pair of pajama pants on, a generic t shirt thrown over his torso, sliding into his side of the bed while Aziraphale was already on the other side, comforter tucked up underneath his chin.

Crowley reaches for the lamp on his bedside table and tugs the screen and suddenly they’re plunged into darkness. Crowley can feel the warmth of Aziraphale underneath the sheets, can feel the sinking of the mattress as Aziraphale shifts. Every ounce of Crowley is awake, buzzing at full capacity and he thinks that he likely won’t get any sleep tonight, despite the lecture he had given himself.

He’s just about to wish Aziraphale a good night and flip over just to hide his face when he hears Aziraphale take in a steadying breath and say, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Earlier today,” Aziraphale begins and then he pauses. “Well, I rather got the impression that something was on your mind.”

Crowley’s stomach plummets through the floor. “You did?”

“And I was wondering if— well, if it had anything to do with your past?”

“My— my  _ past? _ ” Crowley thinks he might have whiplash from the change of topic. He hasn’t the slightest clue where that came from and he’s honestly not sure if he’d rather talk about that or his feelings less.

“Well, you see, you seem hesitant to get close to people.” Aziraphale rushes to explain and under the cover of the night, Crowley can’t see his expression and he’s fairly certain that’s a blessing. “And the longer we’ve been  _ married _ , the more something has seemed to be bothering you. And I was just wondering if they were related. You don’t have to answer, of course. Just chalk it up to curiosity.”

Crowley takes in a slow breath and then lets it out even slower. The good news is that Aziraphale doesn’t see the truth of what has been weighing on Crowley’s mind. The bad news is that Aziraphale has him pegged and is starting to see the scars on his heart. And while his jumbled up feelings have been the main focus on Crowley’s mind lately, he can’t deny that his past has certainly woven it’s sharp fingers in there. It really is because of his past that he’s struggling so hard with the feelings and Crowley doesn’t like that it won’t let him go, even all these years later.

Of all the people he never wanted to share his past with, Aziraphale was top of the list. But that had been before, back when Aziraphale had seemed determined to hate him, to deny him any semblance of respect. But now Aziraphale was more open, more willing to give Crowley some space and to reserve judgement.

And some part of Crowley  _ wants _ to tell Aziraphale, to tell someone, to put the bloody shit show that is his past out in the open so it stops being a ghost that haunts him from behind the scenes. Maybe if he puts words to it, it will stop having power over him.

Under the cover of the night and in the safety of his own bedroom, Crowley thinks it might be alright to finally tell someone, to breathe life into the story, to relive what had happened to him.

“Back before  _ Hellfire _ ,” He begins with no preamble, knowing immediately that he has Aziraphale’s full attention. “I—  _ fuck,  _ angel. I was a researcher, okay? I published a bunch of studies, worked with a partner, all that.”

“You published  _ studies _ ?” Aziraphale’s voice is so incredulous that Crowley is almost surprised that he isn’t jolt upright in bed. “Any I might have heard of?”

Crowley pulls the covers up and presses them over his eyes, his voice muffled as he speaks through the additional layer. “Probably, yeah. I worked in botany and had plenty of well-known studies. If you’ve read any articles on the subject, odds are that you’ve read one of mine.”

“We—” Aziraphale hesitates, flips onto his side so he’s facing Crowley. Not that it does much because Crowley is still hiding underneath the blanket. “We come from the same world?”

“We  _ did _ .” Crowley corrects and he throws the covers down, determined to grind out the rest of the story and just get it over with. “But then my partner tried to hedge me out, to claim one of our research studies as solely his own work. He tried to blackball me, to get me discredited. If the bastard had put in even half that much effort to our study, he would’ve been able to claim at least a decent amount of it as his own. But instead he spent all his time trying to ruin my life.”

“And? Did he?”

“Ruin my life?” Crowley laughs mirthlessly. “I’m writing clickbait for a trashy website. What would you say?”

“He succeeded at getting you kicked off the article?”

“Yes and no.” Crowley answers. “The dean didn’t kick me off the study, but he did order us to work it out amongst ourselves. And there was no working it out. He continued to undermine me, to try and slander my name to anyone who would listen. It became clear that I wouldn’t get another study after the one I was on completed. So I packed up and left. And I learned that I can’t count on anyone besides myself.”

Aziraphale reaches out, his palm warm on Crowley’s cheek suddenly. Crowley stills at the contact, closing his eyes as Aziraphale applies gentle pressure and turns his head so they’d be looking at each other if Crowley were to open his eyes. “You can count on  _ me, _ darling.”

Crowley makes some noise in the back of his throat, the sound mostly aborted as he feels his throat constricting at the words. “Don’t, angel. ‘S nothing for you to worry about.”

“It absolutely is.” Aziraphale asserts, his voice firm and strong in the quiet darkness of the room. “All this time I’ve felt like you were wasting your talent, like you were simply disinterested in putting in the effort and I have misjudged you severely. I apologize for that, darling. And I thank you for telling me the truth. Whoever he is— you are better off without him.”

“Yeah.” Crowley croaks and he opens his eyes then— something he regrets almost immediately because Aziraphale is  _ right there _ . And now that Crowley’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness, he’s able to see the way the shadows dance across his face, to read his expression despite them. And Aziraphale— he looks  _ touched _ . His expression is open and honest and completely raw and Crowley feels it tear through his own chest. “It’s the past. Who cares.”

“Well, you do, I’d wager.” Aziraphale replies gently and there’s no judgement in his words. “It makes so much more sense now. Anathema has always said that you’re afraid to settle somewhere and I see why. You have been betrayed by those closest to you.”

“Not— not  _ closest _ .”

“Perhaps not, but the thing that gave you stability was taken from you.” 

“Angel,” Crowley rasps, his throat raw, his voice barely enough to be heard in the silence of the night. “Can we not?”

“Of course, darling, I don’t mean to pry.” Aziraphale’s thumb strokes across Crowley’s cheek and Crowley shudders where he’s at. “I just appreciate you telling me.”

“We’re husbands.” Crowley offers weakly. “We’re meant to share everything, yeah?”

There’s a moment of silence that makes Crowley realize that he had looked away from Aziraphale’s face at some point. He draws his eyes back to see Aziraphale looking at him with such unguarded emotion that it nearly drowns him on the spot. He thinks that perhaps he should say something to diffuse the tension but he never gets the chance.

**[skip]**

Suddenly but gently, Aziraphale’s hand on his cheek tugs and Crowley finds himself being drawn into the space between them. Suddenly he finds his chest pressed against Aziraphale’s, while his lips are captured soundly, the hand on his cheek holding him just a little bit firmer. Aziraphale’s other hand snakes underneath his shoulder, wrapping around his upper back and pulling him close. Crowley melts into the kiss, the exposed edges softening as he folds up against Aziraphale, kissing him back just as soundly.

He’d never exposed the darker parts of his heart, never showed someone the wounds of his past and had them not just accept them, but gather him up and attempt to put him back together. Crowley feels like he could sob into the kiss but he doesn’t, instead choosing to tangle his hands into Aziraphale’s curls, to pull him impossibly closer. Aziraphale is so soft, so warm, so perfectly comfortable to sink into. Crowley wishes Aziraphale could swallow him whole, wrapping him up and holding him tight. He thinks maybe then things would be alright.

But then again, things are pretty alright right now with Aziraphale’s lips on his, his hand skidding down Crowley’s ribs and splaying out across his back. Things are pretty good as Crowley’s mind— previously full of darkness from the memories of his past— shuts off and he throws a leg up and over Aziraphale’s hip. Aziraphale lets out a low sound at the motion and Crowley thinks that he’s going to dream about that noise, going to dream about the way Aziraphale’s hand leaves his cheek only to catch him under the thigh and pull him closer for  _ weeks _ . Maybe even months. 

**[end skip]**

Aziraphale’s hand slips up from where it’s positioned just behind his knee, moving higher up his thigh and coming dangerously close to his ass when Aziraphale seems to catch himself and pull away all at once, leaving Crowley unmoored and blinking back into the darkness.

“I—” Aziraphale starts to say. “I’m terribly sorry. I don’t mean to take advantage of you in a vulnerable state, dear boy. That’s terrible of me.”

“I’m not  _ vulnerable _ .” Crowley fires back because his head is reeling and his hands are still in the cloud soft curls on Aziraphale’s head, their hips pressed together. His mind reels, trying to pull back to the present but he’s already replaying the taste of Aziraphale’s lips. 

“You gave me a gift, sharing your story with me.” Aziraphale sounds like he’s trying to convince them both of something. Crowley isn’t sure he’s buying. “And I just want to honor that. To be sure you know that you can always count on me. But this— this is an inappropriate way of demonstrating that.”

“Inappropriate, maybe.” Crowley hums and he starts to pull back, disentangling himself with Aziraphale now that the moment is definitely over. “But convincing. An argument you’re welcome to use against me any time you’d like.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says but there’s a raw note to his voice and a tension in his body that makes Crowley think Azirpahale is resisting the urge to pull him back. “I’m going to read your studies tomorrow.”

Crowley groans and flips onto his back, “Don’t kill the mood, angel.”

“I am.” Aziraphale continues, undeterred. “I’m going to read them and we’re going to talk about them because I want you to share your passions with me. I want to know you, Crowley. All of you.”

Crowley feels a crack form in his heart, feels all the emotions he had worked so hard to bury earlier start to bleed out and into the space between them, the space they had just filled with their bodies. “Can’t stop you from doing a google search.”

“No, you can’t.” Aziraphale agrees. He hesitates for a moment before reaching out to gently touch Crowley again, a hand resting on his chest, over his heart. “Would you mind laying on your side? I think I’d— I think I’d like to hold you. If you’re amenable to that.”

Crowley swallows and he wonders if Aziraphale can feel the rapid beating of his heart. “I can be persuaded.”

And then he finds himself shifting, flipping onto his side so that Aziraphale can slide up behind him, wrapping an arm around his stomach and pulling him until his back is flush with Aziraphale’s chest. And Crowley knows this is absolute insanity, that’s the darkness of the night, the early hour of the morning that’s making them act like this. Nobody acts sane after midnight, it’s just a fact. He knows that it’s only because they’re sleep deprived and because Crowley is, actually, vulnerable, even though he hates it and still won’t say it out loud.

He knows all of this. But he also knows that it feels good to be held. 

It feels even better when Aziraphale presses a kiss against the back of his shoulder and murmurs, “I’m here for you, Crowley. I swear it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HOPE IT WAS OKAY!! I am nervous so I really hope you guys enjoyed it all!
> 
> Also, all I'm saying is that you guys should keep your eyes peeled this sunday, Dec 13th. I have a surprise for you :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aziraphale?” Beelzebub startles Aziraphale out of his reverie. He blinks a few times at the computer screen in front of him and then turns to look at Crowley who has his eyebrows drawn together in worry, his own article pulled up on his computer.
> 
> “Yes?” Aziraphale turns to look at Beelzebub and he feels Crowley’s hand land gently on his knee, giving him a light, encouraging squeeze. 
> 
> “Mind if I take you back to my office? Now that you’re about to turn your final article in, I think we should talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO.
> 
> So while this chapter posting today IS a surprise, it is NOT the surprise I have been hinting at. That is still coming tomorrow!! But this chapter was crucial to set up the scene for my surprise so I had to post this today. If you are waiting for the surprise, I recommend hopping on up to the series that this fic is a part of (Denial is a Hell of a Drug) and subscribing to that so you get the notification when the surprise drops :)
> 
> I will say, with this surprise comes slightly altered posting schedule for this fic. Clearly this chapter is not posted on the expected date. Chapter 9 will be posting on Friday the 18th and then chapter 10 won't be until Wednesday the 30th. When the surprise drops tomorrow I'll explain more about why that is but I don't want to say too much now and ruin the surprise in the last few hours!
> 
> THIS CHAPTER IS SPICY. WE ARE EARNING OUR E RATING HERE, LET ME TELL YOU. I have again marked it with ***[Skip]*** and ***[end skip]*** so that way you can avoid it. It's at the very end of the chapter and the start of a new scene so it's pretty easy to find, but it's still adequately marked anyways. Again, if you guys feel like there's a better way for me to mark the nsfw parts to make it more clear, please let me know.
> 
> Otherwise the dedications for this chapter go out to Bianca (hanap) for talking me down from the ledge at 3am when I was considering deleting half of the chapter and for reading the entire damn thing to reassure me it was worth posting and Naro (NaroMoreau) for listening to me scream about this whole thing and then ALSO going through and reading the whole damn thing so I had the guts to post.
> 
> I learned my lesson last chapter about saying that I'm worried it's not good enough, ya'll yelled at me pretty thoroughly in the comments xD So I won't say that this chapter. I will just say that I hope you guys enjoy it. I will say that the next chapter is the single chapter that made me want to write this fic at all. And that I really am excited for this surprise tomorrow so I hope you guys are there to join me for it :)

Everything is different and Aziraphale isn’t sure how to feel about anything.

Ever since that night when Crowley had told Aziraphale about his history, something had opened up between them. Something beautiful and raw and very, very delicate. Crowley still never elaborated further, never really talked about how badly that event had damaged him, but so many things about him suddenly added up. It was like a puzzle piece slotting into place, completing the picture that was Crowley.

Now Aziraphale saw the things Crowley did for what they were. He understood why Crowley had antagonized him so much in the beginning, why Crowley had been so keen to cling to Aziraphale’s negative opinion of him. He’d been afraid of letting Aziraphale see who he really was and finding out that he wasn’t enough— afraid of being kicked out again, even if it would be in a different sense. Scars like that didn’t differentiate, they all hurt the same, no matter the cause.

Of course, Aziraphale had spent the last week-and-some feeling like the world's biggest arse. He had judged Crowley so harshly in the beginning, been so ready to just shut Crowley down for his work and hadn’t ever— not even _once_ — considered the idea that there was more to the story. He had let Crowley heckle him and had risen to his challenges, allowing himself to solidify an opinion that wasn’t based on much— if any— actual facts. And he felt terrible for it.

He’d tried to apologize to Crowley again the next morning but Crowley wouldn’t hear any of it, the vulnerability that came with the cover of the night washed away in the brilliant sun of an early winter morning. Crowley had picked himself up that following morning and gone about life as usual, making a coffee for Aziraphale and making some offhand remarks and they had slipped back into a routine that Azirpahale hadn’t really even realized that they’d been developing.

But they _had_ developed a routine, had learned how to work with and around each other. It was like they had created a sort of dance that only they knew the steps to, a tempo that they could both move flawlessly to. Aziraphale could anticipate Crowley and his reactions, could shoot him a look to shut down a thought that Crowley had barely even finished having because he just _knew_ where Crowley’s mind would end up. Aziraphale could reach out and catch Crowley’s hand, twining their fingers together before he could make any more of those horribly rude gestures at Hastur.

(He never apologized to Hastur for Crowley’s behavior. He wouldn’t go _that_ far, but he could at least prevent it.)

Conversely, though, Aziraphale was starting to realize that Crowley could read between his lines just as well. Crowley had an uncanny knack for reaching out to steady a hand at the small of Aziraphale’s back whenever he was distracted and about to run into something, steering him back to where he needed to be without a word. Crowley also seemed able to parse Aziraphale’s desires quite well, picking out wines he thought Aziraphale would like or filling the cupboards with snacks that Aziraphale hadn’t even asked for.

It was interesting, actually, to watch Crowley’s knowledge bank of him fill up because quite honestly, Aziraphale hadn’t thought there was that much of him to know. He worked during the day and he slept during the night and that was essentially the entirety of who he was summed up into two activities. He didn’t have time for much else before Crowley and so he honestly didn’t think there would be this much for Crowley to discover.

But the thing— the thing that really got Aziraphale, _one_ of the things anyways, was that they were discovering these things _together_ . Aziraphale was learning himself alongside Crowley, discovering facets of his personality that he hadn’t known were there. He was learning his own likes and dislikes, his own tastes just as Crowley seemed to be exploring them, too. And there was something to be said about having someone show you the world, but there was something infinitely more intimate about having somebody show you _yourself_.

If it were anyone else, Aziraphale would hate it. He’d slam the gates and lock them shut, drawing the blinds so there’d be no chance of seeing inside. But this wasn’t someone else, this was Crowley. This was Crowley who had laid his heart bare in the middle of the night, who had trusted Aziraphale with his past— the one topic Crowley had consistently shied away from in the years that Aziraphale had known him. This was _Crowley_ who was letting Aziraphale get to know him just the same and frankly, it would be quite rude of him to shut Crowley out when all Crowley was doing was letting him in.

And even more frankly, he didn’t want to shut Crowley out.

He found that his life had some semblance of peace now, some balance that it had been missing before. Even if that balance was Crowley kicking his socked feet up on Aziraphale’s coffee table and laughing to himself over the rim of his wine glass. Even if that balance was Crowley’s beautiful eyes, no longer hidden behind his sunglasses when they were alone, windows to his soul that he now gifted to Aziraphale freely. Even if that balance was Crowley.

Especially if that balance was Crowley.

Aziraphale knows that he turns his last article in today and he knows that means this entire thing is coming to an end but he’s determined to hold onto it with both hands, wrapping himself around it tightly and refusing to let go. Because he can’t, he _can’t_ go back to the way things were before, can’t go back to working under Gabriel’s boot with no enjoyment left in his career. He can’t go back to writing word after monotonous word on subjects he didn’t care about, staring at the empty chair in his apartment and wishing, desperately longing, for there to be something to fill the void.

Because the void _was_ filled already. It was filled with sharp angles and impossible sitting positions, it was filled with a quick tongue and a bleeding heart. He had filled that void with red hair and tenderness, the warmth of a hand in his own. He had filled that void with Crowley and he couldn’t bear to possibly have that spot in his heart empty again, couldn’t possibly survive the cold loneliness that would follow.

There was a conversation there, Aziraphale knew, looming just on the horizon. If he wanted to keep Crowley in his life— especially if he wanted to keep Crowley in a similar capacity— he needed to be honest with Crowley, to break down the remaining walls that he had left standing.

He knew he could. Crowley wouldn’t judge him, wouldn’t do anything other than meet him in the middle and follow his lead. Crowley wouldn’t ask questions that Aziraphale didn’t want to answer, wouldn’t push for more. That was one thing Aziraphale had learned about Crowley very early on— he was willing to let Aziraphale set the pace and to go wherever he was led. He didn’t ask for more than he was given and he certainly didn’t think he deserved more. So he just took whatever he could, made the most of it, and then he just filled the empty spaces of his life with more work.

Aziraphale didn’t want to look at it too closely because it was too similar to his own life.

So he _could_ have the conversation with Crowley, could put in the time to sort out just what it is he wants with Crowley going forward, but he doesn’t _want_ to. It feels wrong, somehow, to ask Crowley for more than he’s already given. Because he has given so much, bared so much of himself to Aziraphale. It would be simply cruel of him to ask for more. And he didn’t want to do that to Crowley, didn’t want to force him into something else he didn’t want.

“Aziraphale?” Beelzebub startles Aziraphale out of his reverie. He blinks a few times at the computer screen in front of him and then turns to look at Crowley who has his eyebrows drawn together in worry, his own article pulled up on his computer.

“Yes?” Aziraphale turns to look at Beelzebub and he feels Crowley’s hand land gently on his knee, giving him a light, encouraging squeeze. 

“Mind if I take you back to my office? Now that you’re about to turn your final article in, I think we should talk.”

There’s something ominous about the way Beelzebub says it and Crowley seems to feel it, too, because his hand tightens on Aziraphale’s knee. But Beelzebub looks pleasant enough, the edges of their mouth tilted up into a semi-friendly smile, their posture relaxed.

Aziraphale sucks in a deep breath and tries to steel his nerves. It can’t possibly be bad, he reasons. It’s his last article. The worst Beelzebub can do is simply say that it hadn’t been a successful venture and that they wanted to part ways. And that would be fine— that would be exactly as they had expected it to be from the very beginning. It would be the out they needed to cut the lie short, to let it fizzle out until it wasn’t on anyone’s mind anymore. That was— that was okay.

Even if Aziraphale’s heart sinks at the idea of this coming to an end.

“Of course, absolutely.” Aziraphale says and unfortunately has to dislodge Crowley’s hand as he scoots his chair back to stand up. He takes a moment to straighten his vest once he’s standing and then drops a hand onto Crowley’s shoulder, bending down to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Back in a jiff, darling.”

Aziraphale starts to pull away but Crowley’s hand catches him by the back of the head and holds him there, murmuring “It’s going to be fine, angel,” before kissing him properly and letting him go.

Aziraphale feels his heart clench in his chest as he trails Beelzebub back to their office.

* * *

Crowley tries not to lose his mind while Aziraphale is gone. He tries desperately not to think about how this is it, this is the end. Aziraphale is going to come back to his desk for the last time, they’re going to walk out of the office together for the last time. This is going to be it, this is really going to be the end of things.

He had known it was coming, of course he had. It had been the plan from the very beginning for it to end like this but god, Crowley isn’t ready to let go. He’s not ready to give up the mornings where he’s woken up to Aziraphale’s tousled curls, wilder and yet equally as beautiful as he blinks his eyes open from sleep. He’s not ready to give up the feeling of Aziraphale’s chest pressed to his back, the grip of his hand on Crowley’s hip. He’s not ready to give up the brush of Aziraphale’s fingers as he hands the coffee mug over, the sleepy way Aziraphale kisses his cheek as he heads for the bathroom. 

He’s not ready to give up Aziraphale.

They don’t talk about it and Crowley isn’t sure if it’s because they don’t want to or because they can’t— he thinks it’s probably some mix of both.

Aziraphale probably doesn’t want to talk about it. He seems to enjoy their time together well enough, reaching for Crowley on the nights when they're together in the same bed. He kisses Crowley freely and deeply, holding him there for a lingering moment before letting go. If Crowley weren’t so fucked up in his own feelings, he would try to parse Aziraphale’s. But as it stands, he can’t deal with sorting out Aziraphale’s emotions right now because he’s still very studiously avoiding his own.

So what if he wakes up in the mornings tangled around Aziraphale and his heart feels like it’s rising with the sun? So what if he reaches for Aziraphale’s hand without noticing anymore, if he kisses Aziraphale out of some sort of instinct? _So fucking what_ if the idea of not having Aziraphale next to him here, sharing his desk and working beside him feels the exact same as if someone had ripped Crowley’s heart out with their bare hands?

It didn’t have to mean something.

This moment right here was the exact godforsaken reason that Crowley wasn’t allowing it to mean anything. He had known from the beginning that it was going to end and getting his own heart tangled up in it was bound to go poorly. So he wasn’t going to care, wasn’t going to let his heart break apart in his chest, no matter how badly it’s trying to. This was the plan from the beginning and he was going to hold his head high and get through it. 

It’s not like Crowley will never see Aziraphale again. They’ll be able to return to their casual banter across the table at Anathema’s shop. Hell, they might even be able to throw some casual walks in the park in there. Just because their fake marriage was coming to an end didn’t mean that they were going to be separated forever. Crowley could live with those things. He could sit across the table from Aziraphale, sipping his coffee and pretending that he didn’t know what it was like to taste Aziraphale’s lips instead. He could walk by his side in the park and tuck his hands back in his pockets instead of reaching for Aziraphale’s and wrapping their fingers together.

He could learn to sleep in a bed alone again. To be fair, they didn’t spend the night together _every_ night so it wasn’t like he had forgotten how to sleep alone. He was just starting to realize that perhaps he didn’t like it as much as he used to. 

There’s a shuffling sound next to him that draws his attention and Crowley turns to look at Hastur, trying to raise his hackles and prepare for battle but he just doesn’t have it in him at the moment. Every fiber of his being is wrapped up in the act of wallowing, in mourning this thing he’s about to lose. He doesn’t have time for Hastur and his snide remarks, he has bigger problems.

“He done?” Hastur asks and it’s less antagonistic than Crowley is accustomed to.

“Turns his last article in today, yeah.”

“Shame, that.” Hastur glances to the other end of the office where Beelzebub’s office door is tightly closed. Crowley follows his gaze and feels ice run through his veins. “It’s been nice having him around. You’ve almost been tolerable.”

“Fuck off.” 

“I’m serious.” Hastur says and it’s not unkind for once. He’s not looking at Crowley, but his voice is hushed and Crowley feels those cracks in his heart getting closer to connecting, splintering his heart into bits. “You’re better with him. Happier. You actually said good morning to me the other day.”

“I regretted it as soon as I said it.”

“You smiled at me.”

“Yeah—” Crowley shuffles a few consonants together, dragging the word out. “That was my bad. Probably made us both uncomfortable.”

Hastur laughs quietly to himself, something soft under his breath and Crowley realizes that this is probably the first time they’ve ever actually talked instead of just egging each other on. “His articles are good, too.”

“He’s a talented writer.” Crowley agrees and he feels himself softening. Apparently Aziraphale can make him kind, even to Hastur. Who knew such a power existed? “He doesn’t realize it, though. You should see him fret over his articles before turning them in. I could practically recite them all by memory, I’ve read the blasted things so many times.”

“It’s a shame he has to leave.” Hastur repeats and Crowley agrees with him for perhaps the first time ever. “He could’ve been the one to dethrone you.”

“Hah!” Crowley laughs, actually laughs. “Until any of you poor bastards learn to write a daily article, I think my throne is perfectly safe.” 

Hastur grumbles something and turns back to his work, leaving Crowley with the striking knowledge that Aziraphale’s closeness has altered him so fundamentally that he’s apparently even started being kind to Hastur. On top of that, Hastur has noticed a change in him. Hastur, who hasn’t ever even paid Crowley enough attention to give him the time of day can apparently see that Crowley has been happier this last month. Like it’s radiating off of him in waves or something else equally ridiculous. 

He knows that he should’ve sorted this out already but now with the end of everything looming just moments away, Crowley figures it’s not a pressing issue. He can drop Aziraphale off at his own flat tonight and then head home to lick the wounds on his heart and brace for a morning— the first morning in a few weeks— where he doesn’t see Aziraphale. 

It’s utterly miserable and it hasn’t even happened yet. 

He reminds himself, not for the first time, not for the _hundredth_ time, that this is why he can’t allow himself to get attached. Eventually, everything ends. People leave, opportunities abandon him and Crowley is constantly left standing amidst the rubble, the sole survivor who is starting to get sick of surviving these tragedies. Each time he gets closer to dropping the shards of his heart amongst the debris and leaving it behind. If he acknowledges his feelings for Aziraphale now— the feelings he may or may _not_ actually have— he knows this will be the final blow, the one that crumbles his heart to such fine dust, he won’t have a choice but to leave it behind.

Because Aziraphale is— he’s incredible. He’s brilliant and kind, but firm, too. If he says he’s going to do something, nothing will stand in his way. The day after Crowley had finally uttered the bare bones of his past, bared just a glimpse of the skeleton that haunted him, Aziraphale had sifted through over ten pages of google search results, scrolling past link after link to Crowley’s most popular _Hellfire_ articles until he finally found what he was looking for: Crowley’s studies. 

And if that dedication wasn’t enough, Aziraphale had downloaded them. All of them. And he’d read them, asking Crowley questions as he went. Crowley had been painfully hesitant to answer him at first, the fear of Aziraphale potentially considering them equals was nearly paralyzing. Because he wasn’t Aziraphale— he wasn’t brilliantly talented and gifted with words, he wasn’t some expert researcher with all of the answers. He was just someone who liked plants and had been given an opportunity to do something with that. And he wasn’t even that person anymore.

But Aziraphale had treated him so gently and with such genuine interest that Crowley had been helpless to do anything other than answering his questions, detailing his hypotheses, his research methods, elaborating on where he went right or wrong. It dredged up a part of him that he hadn’t seen in a long time— the first part of him he had ever buried behind his carefully crafted facade, the part of him that had been living life so fully before the thing he cared about the most had been ripped away. 

He and Aziraphale had always been able to have deep and intelligent conversations together— their philosophical differences just fodder for more thought rather than a chasm between them. But this? Drawing up the thing he loved and sharing it with Aziraphale? It was like laying his own heart, still beating out on the table before Aziraphale. It was like wringing himself out, crushing every defense he had ever built up and hoping, just desperately _hoping_ that Aziraphale tread lightly on these newly exposed vulnerabilities. 

He did.

Aziraphale had listened so intently, taking in every word Crowley said with careful consideration, asking such brilliant questions to get Crowley to elaborate. He had made that side of Crowley feel accepted, welcomed. He had leaned into it and made Crowley wonder for the first time since he’d left if that side of him still had some room to exist or not. 

He had given Crowley hope and hope was a treacherous thing, a barely flickering candle that would extinguish in the gentlest breeze. And Aziraphale leaving— that wasn’t a gentle breeze, that was a tornado, sweeping away the bits of Crowley that had dared to rely on that now extinguished candle.

* * *

“So what do you say? I’m sure it’s not what you were expecting but it’s what _I_ was expecting when I asked you to come on for a trial basis.” Beelzebub’s smile has turned into something warm as they finish explaining to Aziraphale just what it is they want. “Well, I guess that’s not even true. The numbers exceeded even my expectations. I mean, hell, your articles blew Hastur’s out of the water and he’s been here for a few years.”

Oh, Aziraphale thinks immediately, Crowley is going to love hearing that. He’s going to have an absolute field day knowing that Aziraphale’s statistics beat Hastur’s in the short number of weeks he’s been here. He can practically hear Crowley’s thrilled laugh already, can picture the way Crowley would throw his head back, eyes delighted. Already he knows Crowley could live off of this victory for months. 

“And you’re quite sure that this can work out?”

“The best part of this for you,” Beelzebub says and they look a little annoyed and a little amused simultaneously. “Is that Gabriel becomes my problem, not yours.”

And _that_ really is a compelling reason for Aziraphale to say yes. That, of course, and Crowley.

Because saying yes meant keeping Crowley. Saying yes meant more of his beautiful eyes, half lidded as he slowly drifted awake in the morning. Saying yes meant more of his wit, more of his insight, more excuses to keep holding him, kissing him, drawing him in. Saying yes meant Aziraphale could keep Crowley in this same capacity without having to have that dreaded conversation. It meant that the bliss of the last month just got to continue, an extension of the happiness he’s been surrounded by. 

Logically he knows that the bubble will have to burst eventually, that Crowley will reach the limit of what he’s willing to put up with. Logically he knows it’s still a lie and a small part of him feels bad about it, really, it does. But the biggest part of him is very willing to ignore and overlook that until a later date. Future him is not going to be pleased with the decision but current him sees an opportunity to take what he wants without all the uncomfortable bits and he’s not going to let it slip away.

“Well, then I think we have a deal.” Aziraphale extends his hand out to the space between them and Beelzebub takes it willingly, shaking his hand vigorously.

“Excellent. I’ve already got an email all drafted up to send out.”

“You knew I’d say yes?”

“I hoped.” Beelzebub shrugs as they take their hand back and reach for their computer.

Aziraphale stops them. “If you wouldn’t mind allowing me to tell Crowley before you send it, I’d appreciate that. I don’t think he should hear it from an email.”

There’s a wry twist to Beelzebub’s lips but they relent. “Not that I think he reads emails in a timely manner anyways,” They say, shaking their head but there’s almost a fond edge to it. “But sure, of course. I’ll send it out before the end of the day.”

Aziraphale thanks Beelzebub and takes his leave, heading back for the desk that he shares with Crowley. The desk that he gets to keep sharing Crowley, as long as Crowley is agreeable. Crowley is there, watching him like a hawk as he approaches, the set to his shoulders giving away just how anxious he is for what Aziraphale is about to say.

There’s a swoop in Aziraphale’s gut as he wonders whether Crowley will take this news well or not. The only thing that could get Aziraphale to take back his acceptance, to March back into Beelzebub’s office and stammer out some excuse, was Crowley. Aziraphale hoped that Crowley would feel as excited about the news as he did. 

“Well?” Crowley prompts before Aziraphale has even sat down. “Did they kick you to the curb? Tell you to pack your shit and go?”

Aziraphale settles in his seat and feels his pulse in his throat, a delicate fluttering thing that he almost can’t swallow around. “Quite the opposite, in fact. Beelzebub offered me a permanent position here.”

It’s so clear to watch the moment the information clicks in Crowley’s mind, the moment he sees the possibility that is laid out before them. He has his head tipped down just enough for Aziraphale to see a glimpse of his eyes and he watches them widening as the information sinks home. And then Crowley’s mouth starts to curve up at the edges, a disbelieving but happy smile taking control. Aziraphale’s heart starts to soar at the sight of it. 

Crowley seems to catch himself and pauses, mid-smile, clearly trying to reign himself back in. “What did you say?”

“I said yes.”

The words are barely out of Aziraphale’s mouth before Crowley is surging forward, his broad smile pressed against Aziraphale’s lips in the kind of kiss that cannot be categorized. It’s too beautiful, too bold, too full of overflowing emotions that Aziraphale can’t call it anything other than _divine_. 

It takes a second for Crowley to pull away and then a longer second for Aziraphale to blink his eyes back open. “So you’re staying? Gabriel is going to throw a fit.”

“Well,” it takes Aziraphale a moment to gather the bits of his mind that had been scattered by Crowley’s kiss. “It’s a full time position but I will only be here three days a week. The other two days I will technically still be working for the university.”

“I can’t believe they got the bastard to agree to that.” Crowley sounds elated, overjoyed, like he hasn’t been delivered news this good in a long time. 

“The best part is that I no longer have to have direct contact with Gabriel. Beelzebub will be doing all the communications with him. Of course I will still talk to him via email about my papers and such, but no more meetings.” Aziraphale feels drunk on the excitement of it all, absolutely intoxicated by Crowley’s reaction. He feels like he could live off of the high of this moment for eternity. 

“We have to celebrate.” Crowley says immediately and he’s already reaching for his phone. “I’ll make us reservations, anywhere you’d like to go. Your choice, angel.”

There’s an ache in Aziraphale’s chest that so deep it nearly splits him open, a warmth that comes with the fondness of Crowley’s smile. “We don’t have to—”

“We absolutely do. Now pick.” Crowley is already scrolling through options on his phone but he reaches out with one hand to grab Aziraphale’s, giving it a squeeze.

“Oh, I don’t know—”

Crowley glances up from his phone, his smile utterly brilliant, brighter than anything Aziraphale has ever seen and he stares, transfixed, thinking that he could stare at that smile forever if he were given the chance. “How about the Ritz?”

“That’s so _expensive_ —”

“And exactly what my husband deserves.” Crowley taps on his screen a few times before looking up again. “Done. Reservation’s in an hour. We better get going.”

“We can’t just _leave_ , Crowley.” Aziraphale reminds him but Crowley won’t be deterred.

“It’s Saturday, we shouldn’t even be here anyways.” Crowley shrugs, tugging Aziraphale to his feet. He yells to Beelzebub across the office, announcing that they’re leaving and Beelzebub gives them a wave of approval,

And just like that, Aziraphale is being ushered into his jacket and dragged towards the door. He tries to say goodbye to people as they pass and thinks, perhaps, there was a fleeting smile on Hastur’s lips. He resolves to ask Crowley about that later.

* * *

They had stopped briefly by Crowley’s flat so he could grab a change of clothes and then headed to Aziraphale’s. Crowley changed in the bathroom while Aziraphale puttered through his closet of mostly cream-colored attire, trying to pick something to match the occasion. Something in the back of his mind was telling him that this is utterly insane— celebrating the fact that they have to still lie— but then he feels the elated press of Crowley’s lips again and it chases all of those thoughts right out of his mind.

He manages to pick something that he deems decent and changes and finally emerges from his room to find Crowley standing in the living room, doing up a tie in that small space of available mirror. He glances up in the mirror as Aziraphale approaches and their eyes lock and Aziraphale feels like time has come to a complete standstill around him.

Perhaps it’s because of the way Crowley had kissed him, perhaps it’s due to Aziraphale’s determination to keep this precious thing they have built, his excitement over the fact that it gets to continue. It’s hard for him to say but he feels the breath being pulled right out of his lungs as Crowley turns around to face him finally.

He’s dressed in all black except for his brilliantly red tie, the dress pants and sports coat tailored so perfectly that Aziraphale can see every angle of his body. His hair is tied all the way back for once, exposing the long column of his neck and immediately Aziraphale is seized with a deep, undeniable need. This tender thing that has been growing between them since the night Crowley opened up seems to flourish suddenly and Aziraphale thinks fiercely that he doesn’t want to go out to dinner, he doesn’t want to leave this flat but instead wants to claim Crowley right here and now, preventing the rest of the world from seeing him like this.

He looks devastatingly handsome, the picture of sinful temptation as he steps away from the mirror and approaches Aziraphale. A few strands of his hair have fallen loose and they curl along his temples, framing his face in a way that is unfair.

“You look great.” Crowley says and his voice sounds the tiniest bit tight, like he’s speaking around a lump in his throat. Aziraphale can relate, his own throat feeling so painfully dry. “Can’t wait to show you off to the world.”

Aziraphale couldn’t feel more opposite of that if he tried. “Ready?”

He knows it’s inappropriate for him to scan his eyes over Crowley, drinking in every inch of him. He knows it’s wrong for him to want to reach out and smooth a hand down Crowley’s chest, to unbutton his jacket and find out what’s underneath. He knows that he’s not meant to _have_ Crowley but he _wants_ to and _that_ is alarming.

It’s one thing to ask Crowley to pretend to be his husband, to live the lie, to get wrapped up in it. It’s another thing entirely to ask him to go further, to give over the last part of himself that he hasn’t shared. It’s asking too much, wanting too much, it’s not what Aziraphale is allowed. But by god, Aziraphale would give in to that need in an instant.

For a moment, Aziraphale is Eve and Crowley is the apple, the first temptation and he can’t say no, doesn’t want to say know. He wants the knowledge that comes from that first bite— the knowledge of what Crowley really feels like, what he _sounds_ like. He wants to learn the curve of Crowley’s old bones, to memorize every inch of him, searing it into his memory so that he may replay it for the rest of time. He’ll take the damnation, the eternity of hell for a sin such as Crowley, he’ll take _anything_.

The thoughts strike him all at once and Aziraphale is nearly knocked off of his feet with the weight of them, surprised by the strength of his own desire. It’s just the day, he tells himself. Just the day, the adrenaline of the circumstances, the way the light catches Crowley’s exposed eyes and makes them glisten. 

He knows that there’s something to unpack— not even _he_ could be dense enough to not see it simmering below the surface, not feel the way it’s boiling through his veins and threatening to bubble over, out of control. He’s not going to unpack it, not now, not when Crowley is looking at him with those eyes, wearing that outfit, escorting him out to a formal dinner to celebrate. Not now when the situation isn’t solved but instead just delayed, not when they still need to come up with a plan, still need to determine what they’re going to do.

That’s for a later day, a different time. For now he’s going to reign himself in and go out to dinner with his husband. For tonight, he’s going to enjoy himself. 

“Absolutely.” Crowley scans his eyes over Aziraphale blatantly, boldly, and Aziraphale thinks he must be high on the moment, too. The electricity between them sizzles, crackling through the room, burning them both. “Let’s go, we don’t want to be late.”

Aziraphale takes the arm offered to him, his stomach in knots, allowing himself to be pulled out the door and towards the Bentley.

* * *

Sitting across the table from Aziraphale at the Ritz, of all places, really is just the icing on the cake of how surreal this day had become. Crowley had been so terrified that he was going to lose Aziraphale and this thing they had created that he had nearly jumped with joy when Aziraphale had said that he’d accepted a permanent position.

He hadn’t _actually_ leapt with joy because he did have an image to maintain and he was a grown ass man, but his heart had jumped, that was for sure. He’d kissed Aziraphale fervently and without abandon, pouring all of his emotions into that one moment, his brain temporarily offline and therefore unable to prevent him from doing something so telling. Aziraphale, at least, hadn’t noticed.

And from there, the rest of the day had felt like a sort of dream, something too good to be true. They’d walked out of the office and gone to change and Crowley’s stomach had swooped when Aziraphale had come out of his room in his fancier clothes, looking the actual image of a real angel in his light colors. He looked fucking _gorgeous_ and now he was sitting across the table from Crowley on what was clearly a date and everyone who looked at them had to know that Aziraphale was there with _him_.

It was as exhilarating as it was unbelievable and Crowley didn’t care, he was willing to ride this feeling through the rest of the day. He was willing to throw logic and reason out of the window today just so they could celebrate.

Sure, this meant that they now had a bigger mess to clean up and yes, this just complicated things further but right now, Crowley was just glad that he had more time with Aziraphale.

He knew, god he _knew_ that this also meant that he needed to be more careful, needed to keep a closer eye on his heart. More time with Aziraphale just meant more chances for those feelings to get out of control and Crowley had already clearly determined why that was an awful idea. He could have today and that was it— today and then he would deal with those unruly emotions, locking them away so that they could form a logical plan of action.

“Oh!” Aziraphale sets his wine glass down and leans closer to Crowley, a smile growing on his lips. “I’ve been meaning to tell you! Beelzebub told me that the statistics of my articles over the last month— how did they phrase it? Blew Hastur’s out of the water.”

As if today could have possibly gotten more perfect. Crowley nearly cackles, a thrill running down his spine. Serves Hastur fucking right for always being such an arse. Crowley isn’t surprised, Aziraphale’s writing is incredible and he had a lot of readers already that translated easily. But even still, Crowley hadn’t built up his numbers overnight so it was really impressive to know that Aziraphale had done so successfully.

“Oh I’m never letting him hear the end of that.” Crowley laughs into the rim of his own wine glass, swirling the contents. He feels light, like he’s barely even occupying his own body. 

“I thought you might find that rather enjoyable.” Aziraphale’s cheeks are flushed from the wine and he keeps looking at Crowley _just so_ and Crowley swears he can read the undertones to that expression but he doesn't dare let himself think that way because it’s impossible and unrealistic. It’s his own head getting the better of him.

“I can’t believe you said yes.” Crowley says after a moment, desperate to stop his train of thought from where it’s clearly headed.

Aziraphale reaches across the table and places his hand over Crowley’s, palm warm. “Is it really so bad being married to me?”

“Well, you _do_ snore.”

“I do _not!”_ Aziraphale looks affronted as he pulls his hand back.

Crowley laughs and catches it before it can get out of his reach. “You do!”

“Well being married to you isn’t a walk in the park, either! Do you know that I wake up with a facefull of hair every day?” 

Crowley reaches up to touch the bun on the back of his head. “I can tie it up if you’d like. S’not hard to sleep with it up.”

Aziraphale seems to ponder this for a moment, his eyes tracing the loose curls that Crowley knows are hanging around his face. For a moment he feels almost self conscious and considers tucking them away too before Aziraphale smiles at him.

“No,” He says definitely. And then he fucking scoots closer, leaning forward to gently tug on the hair tie holding Crowley’s hair up, pulling it out and allowing his hair to tumble down around his shoulders, completely free. Aziraphale’s fingers curl in a few strands of it as he brushes it behind Crowley’s shoulder, threading his hands through the ends of it tenderly. “I prefer it down. I won’t be able to run my fingers through it if it’s up.”

The shudder that follows his words wracks Crowley’s entire body and shuts his brain off completely. It’s one thing to do things like that— and Aziraphale does occasionally run his hands through Crowley’s hair when he’s soothing him to sleep— but it’s another entirely to put it into words like that. Crowley feels his stomach lurch and the atmosphere in the room shifts, becomes stifling. He can’t breathe suddenly as he meets Aziraphale’s gaze and notices that the flush on his face has darkened.

“Alright,” Crowley manages to press out around the heartbeat thundering in his throat. “I won’t. But then you can’t complain.”

There’s a dark look in Aziraphale’s eyes, the kind that burns fire into Crowley’s veins and clenches his gut. They stare at each other for a long moment and Crowley doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, because he can feel the tension that’s here and he knows what he wants to do about it but he refuses to make assumptions for Aziraphale. He refuses to ask for more than he’s been given, to try and push a boundary.

A million thoughts run through Crowley’s mind, each one worse than the next as he waits for Aziraphale to break the tension somehow.

“I think” Aziraphale licks at his lips and Crowley is absolutely certain that he’s done for, that the tension has reached the point of suffocation and he won’t be able to survive whatever is going to come back. “We ought to get the bill.”

Crowley doesn’t need to be told twice. He isn’t sure if it’s his anticipation of if the waiter is just very attentive but it feels like he has the bill practically the moment the words are out of Aziraphale’s mouth. He pays and they stand up together, heading for the door and Aziraphale is much closer than he usually is, but Crowley certainly isn’t complaining. The anticipation is like a trembling inside of him as he unlocks the Bentley and slides into the driver's seat.

The drive home is perhaps the most maddening few minutes of Crowley’s life. It starts out innocently enough with Aziraphale placing a hand absently on Crowley’s knee as he drives. It’s happened before and while Crowley still isn’t _used_ to the feeling of it, he’s able to keep most of his focus on the road in light of it. But with each passing mile, Aziraphale’s hand seems to slip a little further up, further away from his knee. The first time it happens Crowley thinks he must just be repositioning his hand for more comfort but suddenly his hand is on the lower part of Crowley’s thigh and then the upper part, his fingers trailing along the inseam of Crowley’s quickly tightening pants and all of his focus is diverted from where it should be.

“Eyes on the road, darling.” Aziraphale murmurs, leaning in so that Crowley can feel the breath of his words warm against his lips.

“You bastard.” Crowley hisses and he slams his foot down on the pedal. 

The Bentley speeds up and takes turns so quickly that she seems to mirror Crowley’s impossible, gravity defying angles. Aziraphale clings to Crowley, clearly disapproving, but making no attempt to remove his wandering hand. The bastard even has the guts to press a kiss to the side of Crowley’s neck as he throws the Bentley in park.

“Angel, I swear to _someone_ if you aren’t in my flat in the next thirty seconds—” Crowley growls, turning to catch Aziraphale’s lips in the kind of kiss that’s so searing it curls his toes. There’s not much room in the Bentley but that’s not going to stop him.

Aziraphale pulls away after a moment, dazed and cheeky at the same time and it’s the kind of combination that’s so maddening in the best way. “You don’t believe in God?”

Crowley shoves the door to the Bentley open, climbing out as best as he can with the state of his trousers. “Trust me, angel. God doesn’t want to see what we’re about to do.”

* * *

***[skip]***

They barely make it through the door. 

In fact, they don’t actually make it through the door. The entire time Crowley fumbles with the keys, cursing under his breath with each extra agonizing seconds, Aziraphale’s hands are _somewhere_ on him. They start by smoothing up his back, pressing between his shoulder blades as Aziraphale drops a kiss to the back of his neck. Then a hand slips around his waist, splaying out across his stomach, fingers dipping through the gaps in the buttons of Crowley’s shirt and teasing his skin underneath. Crowley shudders at the touch, his nerve endings on fire as Aziraphale sears the impression of his fingers into him.

It takes far longer than it rightfully should for the blasted key to finally sink home and Crowley practically throws the door open with enough force to send it flying into the wall. He turns to Aziraphale— gorgeous Aziraphale who is looking at him with hooded blue eyes— and he’s gone. 

Standing there still in the hallway, they reach for each other at the exact same time. Their lips collide and then they’re stumbling through the door and into the flat, tripping over each other’s legs but not daring to separate. Crowley nearly forgets to pull the key back out of the lock before he slams it shut. He doesn’t even have his hand off of the handle before Aziraphale is on him again, grabbing him by the waist and flipping him around. It’s exhilarating, the way Aziraphale can move him so easily, can push and pull Crowley to his will and put him wherever he wants. 

All at once, Crowley finds himself pressed up against the door, Aziraphale’s body warm and unyielding against him, pinning him in place. He feels Aziraphale’s tongue against his lower lip and all coherent thought leaves his mind as he allows Aziraphale entrance, putty in his hands, willing to be anything Aziraphale needs. Crowley groans low in his throat as Aziraphale presses his hips forward, one hand traveling to Crowley’s arse and tugging him closer until Crowley can feel the outline of every inch of Aziraphale— and there’s quite a few inches of outline to feel. 

“Fuck,” Crowley breathes when Aziraphale finally abandons his mouth in favor of lapping at his neck instead. 

He lets his head fall back against the door, eyes unfocused and unseeing as he stares at the ceiling above, one of his hands tangling into Aziraphale’s curls while the other skids over Aziraphale’s torso just _feeling_ him, attempting to believe the fact that this is actually happening and not another part of the weird dreamstate the day has taken on. There’s a fog filling Crowley’s mind and any of the sensible alarm bells that would be going off right now warning him about those feelings he’s meant to be controlling are drowned out by the roaring of his pulse in his ears. Aziraphale’s hand squeezes on his arse and for a moment, Crowley thinks his knees may give out. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale whispers the words into his neck, punctuating them with kisses and gentle nips that makes Crowley’s whole body shudder. “I rather agree.”

“Didn’t know you had it in you,” Crowley rasps, his voice as jagged as his heartbeat, weird to his own ears with the raw edge of desire. “Jumping my bones like this.”

Aziraphale moves back to Crowley’s lips and huffs out a gentle laugh against his mouth. There’s something so intimate about it, about being close enough— both physically and emotionally— to literally _feel_ Aziraphale’s laugh, to feel the way it’s paired with a gentle stroke of his hand across the flat of Crowley’s stomach, out to his hip. Crowley aches from the very depth of his bones with the feeling of it, a yearning opening inside of him so deep that it threatens to swallow him whole. 

The only thing he has against that is the fear that it may take him away from Aziraphale. That’s something he’s never willing to experience and it’s especially true now as he gives those curls a gentle tug and drags a moan so sinful out of Aziraphale that it should actually be illegal. 

“I dare say,” Aziraphale picks their thread of conversation back up with some amount of effort after a moment, his eyes fluttering open and meeting Crowley’s own heated gaze. “This wouldn’t be quite as good if there weren’t some _bones_ involved.”

Crowley’s hands, which had traveled to Aziraphale’s hips, gripping the plush skin there and holding on tight, stilled. “Did you just make a pun?”

Aziraphale’s grin, though weighed down with so much desire it nearly suffocates Crowley, still manages to be cheeky and even a little proud. “Am I incorrect?”

They stand there for the length of one heartbeat before Crowley laughs, throwing his head back against the door, unbearable fondness overwhelming him. Part of him thinks that perhaps this isn’t the kind of situation in which he should be laughing but it feels right, easy, light, even, to laugh while Aziraphale’s hands are tugging his shirt out of his pants and exploring the skin underneath. 

“I suppose you’re right.” He concedes, “but you’re also a bastard”

“A bastard who, in case you’ve forgotten, has a goal to achieve here.” Aziraphale punctuates it with a purposeful tug at Crowley’s belt, for a moment pulling his hips away from the door that’s still supporting him. “And you aren’t making it easy.”

Crowley, his hazy mind taking the cue and snapping back to the moment at hand, trails one hand up Aziraphale’s stomach, up his chest and to his shoulder, starting to push his jacket off in a way that is painfully familiar. “What’s that saying, angel? Good things don’t come easy?”

Aziraphale releases his hold on Crowley long enough to allow Crowley to shove his jacket off entirely and Crowley feels like he’s on fire now that he’s on the opposite end of the situation. Is this how Aziraphale had felt when he’d removed Crowley’s wet shirt in his flat that night? Had his fingertips been trembling, his hands exploring the expanse of body below them with a mind of their own? Had he been absolutely drunk on it, intoxicated to the point that he was certain that he was ruined for anyone else, that no moment could compare to the feeling of this one?

Because Crowley absolutely was.

“I don’t know about that,” Aziraphale whispers into his mouth, his hands finding purchase in Crowley’s hair. “I think it’ll be rather easy to make you come.”

Crowley chokes on his own saliva, caught entirely off guard. He had a pretty solid understanding of Aziraphale at this point but dirty talk like that was _not_ in his mental image of Aziraphale. It was unfairly attractive, though. “Don’t—” Crowley doesn’t even have words, isn’t sure what the hell he’s supposed to say back to that. “Don’t call me _good_.”

“But darling, you feel _so good_.” Aziraphale groans with a purposeful tug of Crowley’s hair. Crowley allows his head to be pulled back because it spares him the need for a comeback and it gives Aziraphale access to his throat that he takes willingly, nipping at the skin there.

It only takes Crowley a moment to overcome the shock of Aziraphale’s dirty talk, the sensations coming from every place of him that Aziraphale is touching are far more overpowering. His mind can come back to the shock later, he reasons. For now, he needs to enjoy what he has in his hands— a gorgeous and far too coherent man. 

Every cell in his body was alive and participating in this moment as he smoothed his hands down Aziraphale’s back to the swell of his ass, grinding his hips into Aziraphale’s and eliciting a groan from each of them. Aziraphale fell forward, hands pressed to the door on either side of Crowley’s head, pinning him in. Aziraphale’s own head hung low, his breathing labored as Crowley kept up a steady rhythm, the friction the only thing keeping him sane. 

Well, remotely sane, anyways. Because he was absolutely out of his mind with desire, the feeling of Aziraphale’s hard cock pressed against his thigh the sole thing he was able to focus on. He needed to feel it, to really feel it, not like this. 

Aziraphale finally raises his head and catches Crowley’s lips in another searing kiss, one hand moving from the door to the back of Crowley’s neck to draw him in and tilt his head _just so_ , granting Aziraphale the perfect angle when Crowley granted him access to his mouth. For the first moment, the feeling of Aziraphale’s tongue against his own was nearly debilitating and Crowley forgot everything except the feeling of that, his stomach swooping inside of him. 

He may have made some terribly embarrassing sound, he can’t be sure. It doesn’t matter anyways because any sounds he makes are immediately swallowed by Aziraphale who is thoroughly exploring his mouth. Plus, Aziraphale is making desperate sounds of his own and it’s honestly hard to tell which sounds belong to him and which belong to Aziraphale. 

Crowley’s still lost in the moment when Aziraphale shifts, taking a step closer and gently pressing his thigh in between Crowley’s legs. The sensation draws him back to the previous task at hand and his hands snap back into action. Ideally he’d love to undo Aziraphale right here and now— unbuttoning every single button on each and every layer, unwrapping Aziraphale like a gift. He’d love to kiss each new swatch of skin as it’s exposed to him, worshipping it in the way it deserves. 

He’d really love to lay Aziraphale down and take his time with him, loving on every single inch of Aziraphale until he’s a mess underneath Crowley, pleading for Crowley to give him _more, please, more_! And then Crowley would love to oblige, giving Aziraphale anything he asked for, anything his body needed. 

But he doesn’t have time for that right now, nor does he have the patience. He needs to touch Aziraphale _now,_ to feel the weight of his cock, to know what it feels like to stroke him. It’s the only thing propelling Crowley forward, a desperate feeling inside of him that’s threatening to eat him alive. 

Given the sheer number of layers Aziraphale is always dressed in, Crowley is pleasantly surprised at how quickly he is able to undo Aziraphale’s pants, shoving them towards the ground. They make it just to his knees before stopping and Crowley honestly doesn’t give one single fuck because it’s enough freedom for him to slip his hand into Aziraphale’s boxers and finally take him in hand. 

Aziraphale let’s out another obscene moan at the feeling of Crowley’s hand and the sound alone is damn near enough to make Crowley come. He tries pumping Aziraphale’s cock a few times but the waistband of his boxers make it an awkward angle, so Crowley sets out to quickly rid them both of the barrier. And then Aziraphale’s naked from the waist down— from the waist to the knees, anyways, the only place that actually matters currently— and Crowley is able to finally have what he wants. 

They never turned on the lights to his flat, the setting sun through the window the only source of light for Crowley to see Aziraphale in. It lights him up in yellows and oranges and he looks gorgeous, breathtaking, devastatingly stunning as he looks back at Crowley, shoulders heaving as he pants for breath, lips parted and face flushed. He’s an absolute vision, standing there with his pupils blown wide as he looks at Crowley like wants to devour him whole. Crowley would let him. 

For a brief moment, it feels like Aziraphale is looking through Crowley, seeing into those shadowed corners of his heart. Crowley had started to give him access to those areas but he wasn’t ready to explore them again, not now. He had other purposes now, so he drags his hand up the length of Aziraphale’s cock, slow enough to distract them both. 

Mercifully, Aziraphale breaks their eye contact and stops trying to read into the depths of Crowley’s heart. But then he nearly murders Crowley when he lets out a sinful “oh, _darling_ , that feels _wonderful_.”

Crowley’s whole body shudders in response what little bit of coherency he had left is officially gone. He throws inhibition to the wind as he strokes harder, faster, kissing Aziraphale again. Aziraphale responds in kind, kissing Crowley fervently, the feeling so distracting that Crowley almost doesn’t notice the hands undoing his belt. 

Aziraphale works fast. It feels like it’s hardly a moment between when Crowley notices that Aziraphale has his buckle and when he feels the warmth of Aziraphale’s hand around the base of his cock. 

“ _Fuck_.” Crowley hisses for a second time, the remaining words of his vocabulary seeming to have vacated him when his mind left. 

He bucks his hips unconsciously and Aziraphale tightens his grip. They lock eyes again for one long, lingering second and Crowley knows in that moment that this is a point of no return— he can’t come out the other side of this without putting a name to the feelings he’s been avoiding. The feelings that are coiled tight in his abdomen right now, embers from the fire that’s going to burn him down and leave him as nothing but a pile of ash at Aziraphale’s feet. 

He _knows_ that this is a point of no return and he doesn’t care because right now it’s gravity pulling him to Aziraphale, fate tying them together. His back is still pressed against the door, Aziraphale’s chest flush to his and his cock held tightly in Crowley’s hand. There isn’t a goddamn thing in this world that could pull him away now, not even the threat of his unnamed emotions. 

“Do you know,” Aziraphale’s voice is like gravel, raw and rough but strong despite that, different emotions sewing themselves into the gaps between his words. “How stunning you look in that red tie? I can hardly stand it.” Aziraphale shudders, his eyes fluttering shut and Crowley feels it echoed inside of him, every nerve ending in his body screaming. ”All I could think about while we were eating is how badly I wanted to have you for dessert.” 

“So have me.” Crowley says and then everything melts away. 

The same frenzy he had felt in the car, the undeniable need that had prevented him from taking Aziraphale to his bed and laying him out properly takes over and Aziraphale seems to feel it too. Their hands move in unison as they kiss every exposed inch of skin they can find, nipping and licking as they go. Crowley can feel the pleasure building in his gut, can feel the way the tendrils of it reach up and into his throat, making it hard for him to swallow. His spine tingles with the feeling of it, his mind absolutely gone. 

In the back of his mind he knows he’s locking away the sound of Aziraphale’s breathy moans, the feeling of his cock as Crowley pumps it with a practiced twist of the wrist, the motion causing Aziraphale’s hand to stutter on him. He knows he’s committing every moment of this to memory, letting it sear itself into him, branding him permanently with this moment so that he may never forget it, never lose what he’s feeling now. 

Coming in the middle of his front room wouldn’t typically be Crowley’s ideal scenario but he finds that he doesn’t have a single shit to spare as the pleasure builds to a crescendo inside of him. Judging by the sounds Aziraphale is making, the way he has pressed his forehead into Crowley’s shoulder, he’s equally as close— and equally as far gone. Crowley picks up his pace, tightens his grip, determined to make Aziraphale come first. 

Aziraphale’s free hand is a vice on Crowley’s hip, his thumb tucked just under the jut of Crowley’s hip bone, holding him firmly in place as Aziraphale shifts, stepping closer so that the tips of their erections brush each other with each pump. Crowley feels a jolt of electricity run through him at the first touch and then his mind goes completely offline. He sees a blinding flash of white as he comes, too incoherent with the sheer ecstasy of it all to have enough forethought to warn Aziraphale. 

He barely manages to hang on enough to finish Aziraphale but it only takes a few seconds before Aziraphale is letting out an elated _darling_ and collapsing against Crowley. They stand together for a long moment, both panting as they come down from their high, allowing themselves a moment to just soak up what had happened. 

***[end skip]***

Slowly, Crowley’s mind starts to reboot and, just like he had known it would be, that unnamed emotion is sitting right at the forefront of his mind. Only this time, it has a four-letter name and a very permanent part in his heart. Because Crowley knows he’s ruined, knows instantly that nobody else will ever be able to make him feel that way.

“I’m so sorry for the mess, darling.” Aziraphale pants around kisses pressed to Crowley’s collarbone. 

“S’not a problem.” Crowley’s voice feels like glass as it comes out, sharp but entirely too fragile, like it alone is carrying the contents of his heart for Aziraphale to see. “Why don’t you go take a shower and I’ll clean up.”

“I can’t possibly let you—“

“Angel,” Crowley cuts him off gently with a hand on his shoulder. “Shower. Go.”

He really doesn’t mind cleaning up the mess but he also very desperately needs a moment to find a spot where he can store this newly named emotion because it’s about to jump right off the tip of his tongue if he doesn’t find a place to hide it away. If he has to look at Aziraphale— flushed and wrecked, his hair a mess and shirt askew, looking the utter picture of debauched— he’s going to say it. And he can’t afford to say it. Not now, not after they’ve somehow managed to complicate things further. 

Crowley presses a kiss to Aziraphale’s lips and shoos him off to the bathroom, resolving to use these few moments to collect himself back together while he waits to see when the other shoe is going to drop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aslfjasl;dfj I promise future smuts will be better than this one. Idk I wrote this chapter so fast that I haven't had space from it to decide if I hate it or not, so I hope you guys enjoyed!
> 
> Reminder to sub to that series or to check back tomorrow for that surprise!!!! :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Exactly!” Gabriel points a finger at Aziraphale like he has gotten the point. Nobody says anything for a long moment. The silence would be uncomfortable if it didn’t make Crowley feel so smug. Gabriel takes in another breath and blows it out as if this whole thing is an inconvenience to him. “I’ve worked it out with Beelzebub that you two will be hosting a panel at the conference!”
> 
> “I’m sorry—”
> 
> “We’ll be _what_ now?” Crowley spits instead, cutting off whatever polite way Aziraphale was going to try and protest. “I don’t think I’ve agreed to shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright folks, buckle up! There's a few things I need to address here!!
> 
> 1\. It's damn near 2am for me right now and I wrote almost all of this chapter today after working 10 hours. So there will be no chapter of the christmas fic tonight, but I'll post two chapters of it tomorrow to get back on track.  
> 2\. This chapter is VERY NSFW. It's the smut that I wrote like two MONTHS ago because I was so excited for it!! This smut is much better than previous smuts, I promise.  
> 3\. It is intended to be written so that the fic can be read and make perfect sense without reading the Christmas fic so if parts of the beginning feel redundant, I'm sorry but I'm just trying to smooth it over for the people not reading the christmas fic.  
> 4\. If you'll notice, our chapter count has changed. I have finally sat my ass down and finished plotting this fic and I can confidently say that it will be 19 chapters instead of the initial 15. We are reaching the breaking point, though, and as pretty much all of you have said, it's going to have to hurt before it resolves because that is way too many chapters left. Which brings me to  
> 5\. The other shoe is slowly starting to drop. I feel bad for starting to bring the hurt but I would like to remind everyone that it WILL have a happy ending so just bare with me as we get through these idiots fumbling around with something that absolutely should not be that hard.
> 
> Lastly  
> 6\. I am WILDLY behind on comments because the daily posting of the christmas fic has just drowned me in them. I am SO THANKFUL to every one of you who reads and leaves a comment and I WILL catch up on them, but it might not be until after I'm done with the christmas fic and back to a weekly posting schedule. So please don't think I didn't see your comment. I did, I loved it, I probably screamed to my friends about it. I will respond to it eventually, I swear.
> 
> Otherwise, please enjoy the chapter that I have been DYING to post since the very beginning!
> 
> OKAY I LIED ONE MORE THING  
> 7\. With this chapter, this fic is officially over 100k!!! I don't know how we got here and I don't have any idea of how long this is going to end up being but I'm so thankful to you guys for coming along on this ride with me! <3

After nearly a week of being able to work from home, Crowley wasn’t looking forward to going into the office. They’d gotten the email somewhere in the middle of the week— and by  _ they _ he means  _ Aziraphale _ because Crowley had very decidedly made a choice to not check his email for the entirety of this new assignment they had been given.

Beelzebub had probably thought themself woefully clever, assigning Aziraphale and Crowley to write Christmas articles together. They sure seemed pleased with the outcome thus far, if nothing else. According to Aziraphale, they had gotten an email also at some point in the middle of the week praising them for their readership and elaborating on how this was exactly  _ why _ Beelzebub had asked them to write together. Crowley didn’t much care, honestly. He was having a good time living his life the last week, even if there was still glitter on every blasted surface of the house.

He had cleaned the shit up at least five separate times but it continued to stick to him every time he brushed too close to one of the ornaments hanging from the garland, and then it just fell off of him as he moved around the flat, finding its way everywhere. He had complained to Aziraphale about it on more than one occasion and the most Aziraphale had done was brush the offending glitter off of whatever Crowley was wearing, completely missing his point and spreading more of it on the ground at their feet.

But his hand was always so warm as it brushed Crowley off, the other one holding onto him somewhere to steady him, so Crowley didn’t really mind. He might have complained even more though, just to repeat the action.

None of that was the point though, he reminded himself as he brushed some of the blasted glitter off of his jacket. The point was that they were being forced to go into the office on a Friday night to celebrate with coworkers that Crowley had been so enjoying not seeing for the last week.

Normally he would blow it off completely, making up some lie or just flat out ignoring the invitation all together, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Because tonight was a party to welcome both Beelzebub and Aziraphale as new staff members to the team. And while Crowley was perfectly fine not celebrating Beelzebub— nothing against them, Crowley actually found them pretty decent— he couldn’t very well get away with not celebrating his own husband. And so he found himself dressed to the nines, white suit jacket pulled smooth over his chest. 

He adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves, tugging them until they laid right and then smoothed down the red tie that he knew Aziraphale liked. There was a fluttering in his throat as he looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t know  _ why _ he felt all jittery, but he certainly did. Perhaps it was because of yesterday, when Azirpahale had jumped his bones before they could even make it out the door. Or perhaps it was the idea of seeing Aziraphale all dressed up for the party tonight.

Although, there was absolutely no guarantee that Aziraphale was going to wear something from this century. He probably had a fancier suit that was at least three generations out of date that he would wear, keeping with his usual fussiness. But still, Crowley’s heart beat erratically in his chest at just the thought because the truth was that he was just excited to see Aziraphale dressed up, no matter how out of date the outfit actually was.

He had dropped Aziraphale off at his flat somewhere around an hour ago so they both had time to get ready and he was due to be heading back any moment now— whenever he could scrape together the courage to head out the door and face whatever he found on the other side of Aziraphale’s door. He tugged on his sleeves again and stared himself down in the mirror. 

This wasn’t a big deal, he reasoned. It was just a party at the office that he didn’t want to go to, a night full of senseless small talk and trivial facts about the lives of his coworkers that he absolutely did not care about even a little bit, It was going to be shallow conversations and comments on his deadlines and probably a whole breakdown of the articles he was meant to be writing as soon as this Christmas column ended.

It wasn’t the kind of night that should have his fingers trembling in his pocket and yet, here he stood, standing vaguely in front of the door, staring blankly at it and wondering what the hell he was actually doing. His keys were clutched in one hand and he knew that he needed to get going or he was going to keep Aziraphale waiting but there was a certain sensation prickling at the back of his neck, creeping down his spine. Crowley stumbled a few steps backwards, trying to sort out his thoughts.

Honestly, it was ridiculous. He’d spent the last nearly week holed up in the flat with just Aziraphale, living out some sort of domestic holiday bliss. He’d done more than enough with Aziraphale at this point that his nerves should be null and void and yet he could feel the creeping prickle as it moved closer and closer to his toes with each passing second.

It’s just— he knew Aziraphale was going to be gorgeous. Like breathtakingly  _ stunning _ . Crowley knew this because Aziraphale  _ always _ was, even in his frankly ridiculous pajama set that he insisted on wearing every single night, There wasn’t a single thing that Crowley had seen him in that didn’t just knock the breath right out of him.

He was nothing short of a besotted fool, completely and utterly arse over tits for his goddamn husband and yet somehow, that wasn’t as lovely as it sounded.

With Christmas being exactly a week away, Crowley knew they only had that week left together. At least, they only had that long before they would have the inevitable talk, the one that would shake the fundamentals of who they were, the one that would decide what their future looked like. And even though this last week— and much of the month leading up to it— really  _ had _ been bliss, Crowley had a sinking feeling in his stomach that it was going to have to come to an end.

He wasn’t lucky enough to hold onto something as amazing as Aziraphale, after all. He was bloody lucky that Aziraphale had even agreed to this stupid charade in the beginning, everything else was icing on the proverbial cake, additional blessings that Crowley certainly hadn’t earned.

The couch comes up on him quickly and Crowley bumps into it, his legs giving out from underneath him. He drops onto the arm of the couch and freezes, a hand reaching out behind him to catch him from toppling entirely onto the couch and wrinkling his suit. He looks down and nearly loses the ability to swallow as images of Aziraphale there, just last night, on his knees between Crowley’s legs float to the front of his mind. Crowley nearly splutters as he bolts upright, all of the blood rushing out of his head. He stumbles away from the couch, away from the door, just blindly in some other direction because suddenly all he can picture is Aziraphale.

Aziraphale whispering filthy nothings into his ear as the door supports both of their weight, Aziraphale’s hand on the inside of his thigh as his mouth works higher, Aziraphale’s eyes fluttering as he groans out Crowley’s name, searing kisses pressed into any exposed skin Crowley has offered.

He barely catches himself on the door frame to his bedroom, dropping his head, chest heaving. This is getting out of hand, this whole thing. He’s being eaten alive by these feelings, burned from the inside out by a desire that he can’t quench. He’s going to be forced to live the next week with Aziraphale still, falling asleep in his arms at night, waking up to his kisses in the morning. He’s going to be handed this domestic bliss and on top of that, he’s about to be handed Aziraphale in formal clothing. He’s about to be given what he can only assume will be the sexiest version of Aziraphale to date with all these images of the last week swimming through his mind and somehow he’s meant to survive.

It’s absolutely stupid of him and he knows that— a fool’s hope, the wish of a dying man— but he can’t stop himself. He straightens up, crosses fully into his room and heads for his nightstand, grabbing two things and shoving them shamefully into his jacket pocket before he heads for the door.

He doesn’t think he’ll actually use them but he does think the presence of them might be enough to ward off the inferno that’s threatening to take him down.

* * *

Aziraphale had left the door unlocked but that didn’t stop Crowley from knocking, standing there on the other side of the door with a hand tucked casually in the pocket of his suit pants like this is a normal day.

This is very much  _ not _ a normal day and Aziraphale realizes that the  _ moment _ he lays eyes on Crowley in a white suit, the lines cut sharply around his body and making his brilliant hair pop, his tie a matching shade of red.

“Hey, angel.” He looks just the tiniest bit nervous. It’s written into the lines of his shoulders, the slope of his jaw, the way he can’t quite hold Aziraphale’s gaze.

“You look—” Aziraphale stops, swallows, doesn’t know how effusive his praise can be— partly because it seems inappropriate somehow and partly because he doesn’t have the words for it. Despite all his years studying and teaching literature, there is not a single word in Aziraphale’s vocabulary to describe how stunningly handsome Crowley looks right now.

“Yeah, white, I know.” Crowley glances down at the suit that’s adorning his body and grimaces. “Bit bright, isn’t it?”

“Stunning.” Aziraphale breathes, reaching out to smooth a hand over Crowley’s tie, Crowley looks up at him earnestly then, a question clearly on his lips. “You ought to consider colors other than black more often.”

“Now, let’s not go wild here, angel.” Crowley admonishes, but he takes Aziraphale’s hand in his own and brings it to his lips, kissing the back of it. “You look pretty dashing yourself. Black suits you.”

“It’s a rather uncomfortable cut, honestly—” Aziraphale fusses and Crowley laughs, warm and comforting, a sound that Aziraphale has started to get used to, to find solace in.

“That’s because it’s from this century.” Crowley teases, his eyes twinkling over the rim of his sunglasses. “I’m surprised you even knew that there  _ is _ modern fashion.”

Aziraphale huffs but he had known that this was coming, had expected it when he’d picked out his suit. But the genuine curl at the edges of Crowley’s lips, the way his eyes can seem to stop roving over Aziraphale, taking in every inch of him— that was why he had picked this suit, despite it being outside of his comfort zone. He had known that Crowley would appreciate it and, well, he had wanted to impress Crowley.

This was likely the only time they would ever get to dress up together, he was going to make the most of it.

“We better hurry if we intend to make it in time.” Aziraphale completely ignores Crowley’s jab, grabbing his jacket and stepping out into the hallway. Crowley waits patiently as Aziraphale locks the door behind him. “Though with the way you drive, I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

“That’s the spirit.” Crowley says cheerfully as they head out into the street.

The snow from the last few days hasn’t melted but it’s started to be packed down in the heavy traffic areas, footprints melding together, dirt mingling around the edges. It doesn’t have the same magical quality that it’d had the night they went to look at Christmas lights, but it still seemed to soften the city, to lessen the blow of the cold as it tried to bite into their exposed flesh.

Crowley, gentlemanly as he can be, walked around the car to open Aziraphale’s door, shutting it gently behind him after he’d climbed in and gotten situated. They chatted idly during the drive that was, as Aziraphale had expected, far quicker than it had any right to be. It was probably a blessing in disguise, though he wouldn’t tell Crowley that. It gave him less time to work his nerves up into a twist, to concoct different scenarios of how tonight could go wrong.

Crowley maneuvers the Bentley up to the curb in front of the building, idling just in front of the front door. Aziraphale turns in his seat to look at Crowley, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“I don’t want to make you walk.” Crowley offers as an explanation, not looking at Aziraphale. “You can wait for me inside. I’ll be just a moment.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Get out, angel.” Crowley says, but it’s not unkind and Aziraphale feels his heart flutter in his chest.

He does as he’s asked, climbing out of the car and walking around to the sidewalk. He could go in the building now, he  _ should _ go in the building now as it’s freezing out, but he doesn’t. He veers away from the building and back towards the car, approaching the driver side window. Crowley, who had been watching him the whole time, rolls the window down as Aziraphale approaches.

“Something wrong—?”

The end of his question is cut off by Aziraphale leaning down through the window and capturing his lips in a searing kiss that chases away the cold of the evening and has him sizzling to the depths of his bones. Crowley makes a surprised noise but kisses him back anyways, one hand coming up to curl into the hair at the base of Aziraphale’s neck. Aziraphale pulls away for a brief moment before leaning in and kissing him again, and then one more gentle kiss.

“Thank you, darling. It’s rather considerate of you.”

“If you say things like that,” Crowley says as he releases Aziraphale so that he can pull back out of the car window. “I’m never going to do something like this again.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes and steps away from the car, swallowing down anything he’s considering saying in response and allowing Crowley to park the Bentley. He waits outside, the heat of their kiss keeping him warm enough to tolerate the wind until Crowley returns to his side, ready to finally head inside.

And then— and then they were arriving at the party together, all eyes on them as they walked in arm-in-arm.

Between Aziraphale being one of the guests of honor and Crowley being the top writer for the site, it wasn’t actually surprising that everyone was looking at them but it didn’t make Aziraphale fidget any less. It felt like each pair of eyes was a test they had to pass, a person they had to convince of their love. It felt like every question was weighted, waiting for one of them to slip up, to say something that gave away the fact that this was all a farce and they were both lying to themselves as much as they were lying to each other. As much as they were lying to everyone else.

Aziraphale tried hard not to think about it.

The office itself was decorated beautifully with a large Christmas tree and multiple wreaths, an overall color scheme of red, green and gold. It was elegant and warm and helped to soothe the jagged edges of Aziraphale’s nerves.

“Ten minutes.” Crowley mumbles into Aziraphale’s ear.

“What?”

“Ten minutes.” Crowley repeats. “I say we stay ten minutes and then we get the hell out of here.”

“We can’t just  _ leave _ .” Aziraphale admonishes, though he can’t deny that it sounds like a tempting idea. He’s not particularly keen on answering all of the questions he knows are coming his way.

“I’ve got the keys ready.” Crowley shrugs, jingling the keys in his pocket to make a point.

Aziraphale gives him a pointed look— one that Crowley only grins at— and grabs them both a glass of wine from one of the waiters making their rounds. And just like that, they’re thrown into the fray of things, people approaching them to talk to them together or pull them apart, asking one of them specific questions about their work. They always manage to find their way back to each other, though, pulled back together like magnets no matter how many people end up between them.

* * *

Crowley is nursing a drink in his hand with no intention of actually drinking it, using it just as something to do other than shoving his hands deep in his pockets and looking like he doesn’t want to be here.

He  _ doesn’t _ want to be here, god he would rather be damn near anywhere else. More specifically, he would rather be anywhere that he can be alone with Aziraphale, away from the prying eyes of everyone who is just as surprised as Crowley is to see him in a suit that isn’t just from this century but is tailored to fit him to perfection. He doesn’t like the way people are looking at him, the appreciative eye they’re running over him. 

He wanted to go home.

But alas, being the top writer for the website and the husband of the site’s newest team member does not afford him the ability of going home and curling up around Aziraphale and those ridiculous pajamas. And it certainly doesn’t afford him the opportunity of whatever may happen between when Aziraphale takes his suit off and when he puts his pajamas on.

“You must be Crowley,” A hand claps Crowley on the shoulder and he nearly jumps out of his skin, the new person having intruded on some very particular thoughts that Crowley was having.

“Er, right, yeah.” Crowley clears his throat and turns to face the man who is even taller than he is with a smile so large it practically blinds the whole room. “That’s me.”

“I can’t believe you’re real!” The man shakes Crowley’s hand far more aggressively than any handshake has the right to be and Crowley feels like his shoulder is coming loose in its socket. “I honestly thought Aziraphale had to be pulling my leg, you know?”

“I don’t.” Crowley says. He doesn’t need an introduction to know who he’s talking to, he’s heard Gabriel’s booming voice through the phone more than once. The man doesn’t seem to have a volume below level ten. 

Crowley’s shuttered expression doesn’t seem to bother Gabriel at all. “It’s just— Aziraphale? Married? I find it hard to believe.”

“Why’s that?” Crowley hedges and he yanks his hand back from Gabriel’s grasp before the man has a chance to actually break the smaller bones in his hand. “Because he’s too far out of everyone else’s league?”

Gabriel’s laugh is even louder than his talking voice which is honestly impressive but in a very,  _ very _ annoying way. Crowley fights the urge to flinch and feels the edge of a headache creeping up his neck and settling at the base of his skull. Crowley grips the glass tighter in his hand and considers throwing all of the contents of it back just to make whatever conversation that was about to ensue more tolerable. Not  _ tolerable _ outright but  _ more  _ tolerable. Maybe, if Crowley really commits to it, he’d be able to hurry up and get drunk and forget the entire thing.

“That’s funny. I guess I see why he likes you.” Gabriel pats Crowley on the shoulder again, his hand lingering as he scans the crowd over Crowley’s shoulder.

Gabriel no doubt means it as a sort of jab but it misses by at least a mile. Crowley wouldn’t care if  _ anyone _ made that comment about him, he certainly wasn’t going to care if it came from Gabriel’s mouth. “I am rather likeable.” Crowley agrees just for the sake of needling the man and he sees the moment the wattage of Gabriel’s smile dims the slightest amount. “What brings you here, Gabriel? Didn’t expect to meet you like this.”

Crowley hadn’t actually expected to meet Gabriel at all and had certainly  _ hoped _ that he would never have to meet Gabriel.

“I was invited, of course! Now that Aziraphale is working here, the university and  _ Hellfire _ are sort of tied together, you see.” Gabriel answers, turning up the brightness on his smile again as if to make a point of being unoffended. “Speaking of Aziraphale, where is he? And where’s that Beez person? I have to talk to you guys about something.”

“I’m sure it can’t be  _ that _ pressing.” Crowley takes a step back, pretending to scan the room for Aziraphale when he already knows exactly where he’s going to find him. He makes sure to turn around for the show of it, dislodging Gabriel’s hand from his shoulder as he does so.

“Oh, it is.” Gabriel replies and Crowley isn’t sure if he’s just  _ very _ dense and unable to see the signs Crowley is clearly giving him or if he’s purposely stubborn and ignoring them. Crowley suspects it’s the latter— it tastes bitter on his tongue like some stupid power move that Gabriel is performing to have the upper hand. Unluckily for him, Crowley couldn’t give a fuck less about him or his power trip.

“Well, if I find them, I’ll be sure to bring them over.” Crowley shrugs and turns to take off, with every single intent of leaving Gabriel standing there in the middle of the room, looking a fool. 

Too bad that Crowley finds himself coming face to face with Aziraphale when he spins on his heel. “Who are you looking for?”

“Aziraphale!” Gabriel booms and Crowley sees Aziraphale flinch and then shrink in on himself, understanding immediately dawning in his eyes as he shoots Crowley an apologetic look. “There you are, excellent! There’s something I need to talk to you both about!”

And honestly the best course of action is probably just to hear Gabriel out and get whatever terrible encounter this is out of the way. Crowley considers it for all of half a second before remembering all the stories he’s heard about Gabriel and deciding with even more certainty than he has in the past that Gabriel is an absolute wanker and doesn't deserve the time of day.

“Thought you said we needed Beelzebub for this?” Crowley drawls, reaching out to slide a hand down Aziraphale’s arm, across his wrist and palm before settling his fingers between Aziraphale’s. “Don’t want to do it without them. We can meet up sometime later, it’s fine.”

Gabriel is watching the way their hands twine together, his face pinching into a strange expression. Crowley feels vindicated, squeezing Aziraphale’s hand tighter and tilting his chin up, challenging Gabriel to say something.

Gabriel does say something, but not about that. He’s clearly a broad chest with no brains, but he’s not a complete buffoon apparently. “Nonsense, I’ve already discussed this with them. They don’t have to be here for me to tell you about it.”

Aziraphale glances up at Crowley and Crowley turns to meet his gaze. He can read the uncertainty there, the way Aziraphale feels wildly uncomfortable in Gabriel’s presence. He can just  _ feel _ how badly Aziraphale wants this situation to be over with.

So, for Aziraphale’s sake, Crowley bites back any antagonistic thing he wants to say, he roots himself to the spot and he looks at Gabriel, forcing his words to come out more civilly than he’d like them to. If he were the only one who would suffer the repercussions of his attitude, he wouldn’t hesitate to let Gabriel know exactly what he thinks. But his attitude will reflect on Aziraphale, too and Crowley would never do something to risk Aziraphale like that. 

“Alright then, what is it?” It isn’t  _ civil _ , but it’s miles closer than Crowley would like to be.

As expected, Gabriel either doesn’t notice or just flat out doesn’t care. “The university is hosting a conference in a few weeks.” He states, like that makes all the sense in the world, like there isn’t any further explanation that he needs to give.

Crowley’s patience runs so very thin.

Sensing this, Aziraphale steps into the conversation finally. “Yes, of course, we’ve been planning it for months.”

“Exactly!” Gabriel points a finger at Aziraphale like he has gotten the point. Nobody says anything for a long moment. The silence would be uncomfortable if it didn’t make Crowley feel so smug. Gabriel takes in another breath and blows it out as if this whole thing is an inconvenience to him. “I’ve worked it out with Beelzebub that you two will be hosting a panel at the conference!”

“I’m sorry—”

“We’ll be  _ what _ now?” Crowley spits instead, cutting off whatever polite way Aziraphale was going to try and protest. “I don’t think I’ve agreed to shit.”

“Oh, come on now. It’s an excellent opportunity! You guys will just have to talk to your audience about some of your more popular articles. Couldn’t be easier!” Gabriel brushes off Crowley’s concerns and Crowley sees immediately why Gabriel is such a terrible boss.

He remembers all the times he sat across from Aziraphale in Anathema’s cafe, watching him rewrite the same sentence over and over again until it was  _ perfect _ , only to rewrite it  _ again _ because he was certain that Gabriel wouldn’t like it. He remembered the way that translated to their articles for  _ Hellfire _ , the way he had to constantly reassure Aziraphale that what he wrote was more than just good enough. He could see the way Gabriel had beaten Aziraphale down over and over again with that casual disinterest, the condescension that he hid behind a false smile.

Crowley’s about three seconds from saying something— he isn’t sure what, the scathing words are still forming in his head, but Aziraphale takes a step forward, no doubt aware of whatever was happening inside Crowley’s mind. “I think that sounds rather enjoyable. We’d love to participate.”

“We’ll  _ think about it _ .” Crowley hastens to correct, refusing to budge and give Gabriel what he so clearly wants.

Gabriel’s gaze darkens the tiniest amount as he meets Crowley’s eyes through his sunglasses. “How about you both come by the University after the holidays, huh? I know the rest of the department would love to see that Aziraphale’s husband is real and then I can explain all the details there?”

Crowley could pick a fight with Gabriel right here and now and he knows it. It’d likely get him kicked out of the party but that’s honestly not the worst consequence. In fact, it might be a win-win situation: showing Gabriel what’s what and also being sent home, away from the mess that this night was turning into.

But Aziraphale is staring with determination down at his feet and Crowley knows that right now he has to think about what’s best for his husband, not for himself. And right now what Aziraphale needs is for him to check his attitude, to be civil and to handle this with more grace than he’s been handling it with so far.

“Alright.” Crowley agrees, even though the words sting in his throat as he says them. “We’ll come by after Christmas and hear you out. It’ll give us time to talk about it. We have a lot of other commitments, you know.”

“No,” Gabriel says, wary eyes landing on Aziraphale and Crowley feels a protective surge low in his gut. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, well, there’s something to be said about keeping your personal life  _ personal _ .” Crowley tugs on Aziraphale’s hand and draws him to his side, “but you can take my word for it. We’re rather busy people. And popular journalists, at that.”

“Popular  _ author _ .” Gabriel corrects.

But Crowley can play his game of being purposefully dense if he wants to. And he does want to, terribly. “Feel free to email us the details and we’ll see you then. But if you’ll excuse us we have some  _ schmoozing _ to do.”

And then he promptly drags Aziraphale away, not sparing even a momentary glance over his shoulder at Gabriel who he hopes is staring at their retreating backs in open-mouthed disbelief. Crowley steers them towards the refreshment and snack table, taking up stock next to it and looking at Aziraphale who is a particular shade of pink along his cheek bones.

“Schmoozing?” Aziraphale asks after a moment and there’s a hint of laughter in his voice.

“God, where does he get off being such a prick?” Crowley groans, reaching for one of the tiny plates of cake and handing it to Aziraphale instead. “Just  _ assuming _ like that. What if I don’t want to work for the wanker?”

“Crowley you can’t say things like that right now. There are plenty of people around.” Aziraphale admonished, glancing around to make sure that they hadn’t been overheard.

“I don’t give a fuck. I’d say it to his face if it weren’t going to cause you trouble,” Crowley replies evenly. “The arse might even be worse than Hastur.  _ Hastur _ , angel! I didn’t think anyone could be worse than that idiot.”

Aziraphale rolls his eyes fondly and steps up to Crowley, placing the plate of cake that he’d been handed back on the table, Something about the action stills Crowley in his spot, all thoughts of Gabriel and what an absolute irritating piece of shit he is fleeing from his mind in one fell swoop. He stares down at Aziraphale as Aziraphale glances up at him, lip bitten between his teeth and all the other thoughts Crowley has ever had leave his head, too.

He feels Aziraphale’s hand as it ghosts up along his chest and finds its place on Crowley’s cheek, the warmth of it the only thing he can focus on. He’s so lost in the feeling that he almost doesn’t register when Aziraphale murmurs, “I appreciate you standing up to him.”

“Don’t mention it, angel.” Crowley somehow manages to scrape together. “It was my pleasure.”

And it  _ was _ his pleasure, really. But what was even  _ more _ his pleasure was the way Aziraphale kissed him then, sweet as anything with a certain undercurrent to it that Crowley was starting to get used to. An undercurrent that had Crowley’s knees going weak underneath him. He thought again about the cake that Aziraphale had put down in order to give him this kiss and Crowley couldn’t stop himself from reaching back, pulling Aziraphale in, tipping his head back so as to kiss him easier.

Vaguely in the back of his mind, he was aware that they were in the middle of a crowded room surrounded by more people they didn’t know than people they did. He knew he couldn’t kiss Aziraphale senseless like he wanted to, couldn’t grab fistfulls of that jacket as he nosed his way down the column of Aziraphale’s neck, the skin no doubt tasting as sweet as this kiss.

With a nearly unbearable amount of regret, Crowley pulled away, every fiber of his being screaming for him to keep going, strangers be damned.

“I think,” Aziraphale breathed, still close enough that Crowley could feel his breath tickling his cheeks as he spoke, “it’s a bit hot down here, don’t you? Perhaps we ought to get a moment away.”

* * *

When he had said it, he had mostly meant that they should perhaps take a step outside to cool off. Even though Aziraphale would openly admit that it wasn’t the temperature of the room that was hot, he was fairly certain a blast of cold air would work to cool him off in  _ that _ was just the same. But when Crowley’s smile had turned sharp, glinting with mischief in a way that was unfairly alluring, Aziraphale hadn’t been able to do anything other than follow as Crowley had led him to the elevators.

The ride up had been mostly silent, the mirrored walls of the elevator granting Aziraphale unobstructed views of Crowley from every angle and it was truly torturous how good Crowley looked in that white suit, his shock of red hair brilliant against the stark color. Aziraphale could hardly swallow around his dry throat, licking his lips as Crowley shifted next to him, his shoulders flexing under the fabric of his tailored jacket, showing off the strength of them.

That was the thing about Crowley— he was thin but he wasn’t weak. He had strong bands of muscle all over his body and sometimes he would turn in just the right way that Aziraphale wouldn’t be able to stop staring. This was one of those times.

“Something on your mind, angel?” Crowley teases and Aziraphale flushes at least fifteen shades of red.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.” Aziraphale mumbles.

He’s not sure  _ why _ he’s embarrassed, exactly. Just last night he had shoved Crowley against the couch and, well— Aziraphale coughs. It’s not as if he needs to shy around Crowley, not as if he hasn’t shown his darker desires to Crowley— and recently, even! And the more Aziraphale thinks about it, it really  _ isn’t _ Crowley. Aziraphale feels unreasonably comfortable around Crowley, absolutely certain that Crowley would take any inane desire he had in stride. No, Aziraphale had just chosen Crowley over dessert and there was surely no mistaking that intent— not for Crowley, anyways, who had put in the time to study Aziraphale and therefore had to know exactly the significance of such a thing.

The elevator doors open and Crowley leads them out onto their usual floor, the lights off making it look eerie. Aziraphale is used to seeing is bustling with people instead of empty like some ghost town, holding secrets that nobody would ever believe.

They move through the floor slowly, towards the conference rooms in the back and Aziraphale can feel the anticipation building inside of him, thicker and thicker and thicker until he’s nearly overrun with it, immobilized in his place, his body unwilling to move any further until it has the thing it desires. And that thing happens to be a redheaded demon of a man who is grinning at him as he flicks on the conference room lights and steps aside.

It’s clearly an invitation, clearly something that Aziraphale has the free will to reject if he wants. But he had started this, hadn’t he? Overrun with emotions, touched by the way Crowley hadn’t backed down to Gabriel, by the way Crowley had clearly been restraining himself on Aziraphale’s behalf, Aziraphale had started this, He had kissed Crowley smack dab in the middle of the floor, less than a day after unraveling him in his flat. He had known what he was doing, had known that his kiss was far too sinful to be taken as a simple  _ thank you _ .

So no, he doesn’t want to deny what is being offered to him. In fact, he wants to sink his teeth into it— literally and figuratively— and hold on tight. He wants to be closer, to cling harder, to absolutely never let go.

The alarm bells in the back of his mind are something he’s practiced at ignoring now and so he does, he ignores them with a developed expertise as he steps past Crowley, his shoulder brushing Crowley’s chest, and into the conference room, suppressing a shiver as he goes. He takes a few lingering steps into the room, turning to face Crowley once he does.

Crowley follows him into the room, carelessly shoving the door shut behind him but it doesn’t click all the way closed. Aziraphale has a fleeting moment of thinking that he should probably care about that and then Crowley’s lips are on his, his hands cupping Aziraphale’ jaw and all other thoughts are absolutely obliterated.

In this suit, Crowley feels even better than ever pressed up against Aziraphale, the sharp angles pressing into Aziraphale’s softest parts. It doesn’t hurt, though. In fact, they meld together flawlessly, creating a new shape of their own as Crowley pulls away just enough to look Aziraphale in the eyes, his half lidded gaze visible even from behind his sunglasses.

Crowley takes a step closer and Aziraphale takes a step backwards in response, the back of his thighs pressing against the conference table behind him. It’s a startling reminder of the night before only this time, their roles are reversed. A shiver runs down Aziraphale’s spine. The only remaining coherent brain cell he has draws up the memory of the partially closed door and he knows that he  _ should _ be more concerned about it. Not only could someone  _ find  _ them, but even more likely, someone could  _ hear _ them. 

If they did anything, that was. 

And truthfully, the situation appeared to be heading in that direction. 

Even more truthfully, Aziraphale would be disappointed if it  _ didn’t  _ head in that direction.

[*skip*]

Crowley slid his glasses off his face and leaned forward to set them next to Aziraphale’s hand on the table. The movement served only to show Aziraphale just how close they actually were and he had to suppress a shiver as Crowley’s chest brushed against his arm. He was warm. Or perhaps it was the fact that his touch felt like fire, burning Aziraphale down to his old bones, igniting something within him that he thought had long since gone dormant. Crowley had a way of doing that, had been doing that for a while now— burning Aziraphale to his very core, scorching away all the lies that Aziraphale had hid behind. 

This wasn’t the first time Aziraphale had found himself simmering in desire for Crowley, but this time was different. This wasn’t last moment, this wasn’t frenzied and rushed, a product of too many emotions at once, This was slower and very deliberate. They were making conscious decisions to be here, to bring themselves together, to forge into one being. And while they had agreed to live this week to the fullest, this was still a line that they were  _ choosing _ to cross, a point of no return and the weight was heavy on Aziraphale’s shoulders.

When Crowley pulled away, he didn’t go far, his molten gold gaze hooded and full of so much unguarded emotion that Aziraphale felt the air being punched right from his lungs. 

“Well, angel, it’s just us here. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Crowley’s voice is a low rumble, the sound of it reverberating low in Aziraphale’s gut, shaking him apart at the core. 

Aziraphale takes a deep breath, hopes desperately that his voice comes out steady— that it comes out  _ at all _ , honestly. “Crowley, there are still people in the building.”

“Downstairs,” Crowley agrees in the same low voice that just  _ does something  _ to Aziraphale. The intimacy of the moment is nearly suffocating, an unbearable pain that Aziraphale never wants to be rid of. “But we aren’t downstairs, angel.” 

“And what if these other people also decide to stop being downstairs?” Aziraphale is breathless, drunk on the wine of the party and Crowley’s closeness. 

Aziraphale had known that it was going to be a long night when Crowley had picked him up. When he’d opened the door and seen Crowley there, outlined in a suit cut so sharply that Aziraphale could see every angle of Crowley’s body— well, he’d nearly slammed the door shut in Crowley’s face. And the suit had been white!  _ White _ . Perhaps the single color Aziraphale had never seen Crowley in. Asking him to spend the entire evening next to Crowley while he was looking so stunningly handsome, so utterly delectable, was absolutely unfair to Aziraphale’s poor heart which was already confused enough about its feelings for Crowley. 

Because as much as he wanted it to be, as much as he said it was, this wasn’t make believe. The way his heart sped up with every gentle touch from Crowley, with every silent look exchanged as they listened to someone drone on about a topic neither of them cared about— that was  _ real _ . And this was real, too, standing here in this conference room with Crowley, just on the precipice of the cliff with only two options left: turn away or jump.

Aziraphale was dangerously close to jumping.

“What reason does anyone have to come up here?” Crowley dismisses immediately, but there’s an edge to his voice, a tiny, barely there, only visible to Aziraphale who knows him too well at this point hesitation to his movements, the smallest downturn at the corner of his lips.

“What reason do  _ we _ have to be up here?” Aziraphale challenges feebly. Because he wants to know that Crowley wants this too— this fragile thing they have built, this delicate, perfect dynamic that they have crafted. He needs to know that Crowley  _ wants _ this, here and now, with him.

Crowley grins, something sharp and dastardly and Aziraphale feels his heart jump into his throat because he can tell that Crowley knows, that Crowley hears the unspoken question in his words, Crowley takes that final step forward, closes the last of the distance between them, pressing his body against Aziraphale’s— chest to chest, hips to hips, legs tangled around each other. Crowley’s hands are flat on the table on either side of Aziraphale, his breath warm on Aziraphale’s neck, his ear. 

“I can think of at least one reason,” Crowley murmurs right against the shell of Aziraphale’s ear. A shiver wracks its way down Aziraphale’s spine and Crowley huffs out a quiet laugh in response. 

“People— people could  _ find us _ , Crowley!” Aziraphale’s voice doesn’t even try to come out steady now. It’s a breathless whisper, barely loud enough to be heard. But Crowley, pressed against him, wrapped around him, hears it. “What would they think?”

“Oh, that one’s easy, angel.” This time, Aziraphale can  _ feel _ the movement of Crowley’s lips against the soft spot right behind his ear. Aziraphale’s knees feel weak. “They’d think about how lucky I am.”

A  _ jolt _ goes down Aziraphale’s spine at the idea of someone walking in and finding them like this. Or finding them like— like—  _ good lord.  _ Aziraphale feels dizzy. 

He knew it would be uncouth, absolutely improper of them to do something so— so  _ scandalous _ in the vicinity of other people. His sense of propriety simply wouldn’t allow it. But Aziraphale knew that there was a part of him, not nearly as deep down as he expected it to be, he was learning, that liked the idea. The truth was that  _ Aziraphale _ would be the lucky one, not Crowley. If someone walked in and saw him claiming this gorgeous man for himself, well, Aziraphale couldn’t deny the smug sense of satisfaction he’d get. 

And they  _ were _ meant to be married after all. It would hardly be the first time a married couple snuck off for some, ahem, alone time. 

And honestly, if nobody saw them downstairs for a little while, they would probably assume that the two of them had gone home. Crowley was, to Aziraphale’s understanding, notorious for not even attending events like this at all. It would hardly b e a stretch to think that they’d had their fill of the festivities and headed home for the night instead.

“Crowley,” It’s somewhere between a plea and a moan and this time it’s Crowley who shudders, dropping his head onto Aziraphale’s shoulder and taking deliberate deep breaths, as if he’s moments from tearing apart at the seams and desperately trying to hold on to even the tiniest amount of self control. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley replies after a moment, his voice as wrecked as Aziraphale feels, despite the fact that they haven’t done a single thing yet. 

Briefly Aziraphale wonders if it’s always like this— electric, magnetic, like gravity drawing them together in a way that is absolute and undeniable. It’s certainly never felt like this with anyone else. But with each passing day, each brush of the fingers, each kiss, Aziraphale feels himself pulled further into Crowley’s gravitational pull and he knows that this will be the last straw. If he follows through on this now, he’ll never find his way out again. Aziraphale feels the foundation of who he is, the foundation of his relationship— or lack thereof— with Crowley shaking apart underneath his feet, altering everything from the core of his heart out. 

Crowley shifts then, pulling away to look Aziraphale in the eyes. With his sunglasses gone, there’s nothing to mask the raw desire in his eyes, nothing to buffer the weight of it as it crashes into Aziraphale, knocking him straight off his feet and sweeping him away. He looks back into Crowley’s beautiful eyes, barely illuminated as they are in the mostly dark conference room, and knows that he’s done for. 

Aziraphale knows that if he says no now, Crowley would let him go. If he insisted that he needed to leave, to return home, to do anything other than this, Crowley would let him with absolutely no hesitation and no hard feelings. He knows that with unwavering certainty because Crowley is a lot of things, but a selfish person isn’t among them. He knows that Crowley is waiting, just like he is, for the moment that this ends, for the moment when everything comes to an end. He knows that Crowley refuses to take more than he’s given, refuses to push for more than he thinks he deserves. If Aziraphale were to say no know and walk away, Crowley would chalk it up to his lot in life and he’d never mention it again, Aziraphale was devastatingly certain of that.

But Aziraphale also knows that he— well, frankly, that he could  _ not _ say any of that. He knows that he could take this sense of propriety, this fear of being caught and bury them both deep inside of him, incinerating them in the fire of his desire that’s burning brighter than Aziraphale even thought possible.

He could ignore the alarm bells the way he has been ignoring them all week, could continue to press forward, to chase the tendrils of this thing laid bare between them, following them to their roots and finding out what it really is that’s growing between them.

The silence is stretching thin between them and he knows that he has to say  _ something _ , he just doesn’t want to say  _ that. _

So, he says, “Kiss me.” instead. 

And Crowley does. 

They come together like tidal waves, crashing into each other, forging together, strengthening each other. Crowley presses Aziraphale more firmly into the table, trusting Aziraphale accept the weight of him as he lifts his hands from the table, tangling one in Aziraphale’s hair while the other sneaks under his suit jacket to grab fistfuls of his vest at the small of his back. In only a matter of seconds, Aziraphale doesn’t know where he ends and Crowley begins, he doesn’t know anything more than the press of Crowley’s lips, the taste of the wine on his tongue. Aziraphale’s senses, his heart, it’s all full of  _ Crowley _ and he has a moment of startling realization that he wants it like this— always Crowley, only Crowley. 

And then Crowley moves, kissing Aziraphale's jaw and just under it and the implications of the realization fled Aziraphale’s mind as all of the blood from his head rushes somewhere else. 

He has one hand tangled in Crowley’s shoulder length hair, the strands silky as Aziraphale gives them a gentle tug. Crowley groans low in response, something desperate and raw, and Aziraphale can’t stop himself from dragging Crowley back to his lips and kissing him soundly, tasting the next groan on his tongue. Instinctively, he shifts all of his weight into the table and spreads his legs, allowing Crowley to slot himself fully between Aziraphale’s thighs. Crowley comes willingly, hands exploring every inch they can possibly get of Aziraphale. 

In the back of his mind, somewhere behind the haze of lust that is now clouding every coherent thought Aziraphale has, he knows that there are concerns he should have. For starters, the door is still slightly ajar. Anyone could conceivably stumble up onto this floor for a series of reasons and it wouldn’t be surprising at all if they did. And, well, the  _ sounds  _ that were coming from this room would no doubt lead them right here. 

There’s a split moment where Aziraphale almost touches his two remaining brain cells together long enough to suggest that they close the door and then Crowley rolls his hips against Aziraphale’s, pressing a firm kiss to his collarbone in an attempt to hide the moan that follows and Aziraphale immediately abandons all thoughts that aren’t related to that exact thing. He wants to hear it again. He  _ needs  _ to. 

Without his conscious permission— which is good because all thoughts are gone at this point, replaced by some deep rooted need— his hands find their way down to Crowley’s hips, dragging him closer as Aziraphale grinds their hips together. Their moans come in unison then, Crowley’s hand pressing with bruising force into Aziraphale’s back. His other hand stutters where it is, fumbling with the button it had been trying to undo. It takes a moment for either of them to drag themselves back under control, but when they do, this resumes with a more frantic pace. 

Crowley undoes the buttons at Aziraphale’s collar, yanking his bow tie out and tossing it on the table behind Aziraphale. His throat is barely exposed for a moment before Crowley’s lips are on it, his hands working further down to undo Aziraphale’s vest and then the shirt underneath. Aziraphale would like to be doing something similar to Crowley’s clothes but the angle doesn’t much allow for it, so he settles with snaking his hands down and cupping Crowley’s ass, their hips maintaining a steady pace that gives them enough friction to get some relief but not enough to cause them to lose control. 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley nearly growls, his hands sneaking inside Aziraphale’s shirt and running over his bare skin. If he had sounded wrecked before, he sounded absolutely decimated now, completely strung out on emotions. 

In response, Aziraphale sucked a shaky breath in through his teeth, burying his face in Crowley’s auburn hair. He takes one hand off of Crowley's ass to make quick work of the hair tie holding up half of his hair. The copper waves tumble down, framing Crowley’s stunning face as he looks up at Aziraphale, pupils blown wide, cheeks red and lips deliciously colored from so much kissing. 

“Crowley, my darling.” Aziraphale rasps in response, the hand moving from Crowley’s hair to his cheek, cupping Crowley’s face in his palm. “You—“ 

Aziraphale pauses. Swallows. Thinks about it. He shouldn’t say what he’s thinking. Their marriage is only an arrangement, after all, not a real thing. It’s just means to an end, something for them to hide behind until Aziraphale can part ways with  _ Hellfire _ without suspicion. That’s it. The last thing he needs to do is go and ruin the whole thing by— he stops the thought before it fully forms. 

Because the truth is that it’s no longer like that, Their marriage isn’t real, of course, but it  _ feels _ real. Waking up to Crowley each morning, holding him close in the middle of the night, it’s  _ real. _ Even here, in this empty conference room, the emotions Aziraphale feels are too vivid to be anything short of painfully genuine. And yet their marriage is still supposed to be fake, still supposed to end. He knows this. And yes, it had been his idea— a desperate thing, really— to throw inhibition aside this week and embrace their life as husbands. He shouldn’t allow it to go this far though, despite their agreement. He shouldn’t allow them to cross this line when he knows that this bliss is only temporary.

Crowley is staring back at him, mouth parted as he waits for the rest of that sentence and Aziraphale thinks that he can have this, just this, one single time. They’re already here, they’re already in too deep. He can have this moment. 

“You are absolutely stunning.” Aziraphale breathes quietly, reverently, like a promise. “I haven’t been able to take my eyes off of you all night.” 

Crowley makes a noise that Aziraphale can’t quite name but it’s equally as beautiful and lovely as Crowley himself and Aziraphale locks it into his heart so that he may never forget it, never forget this moment. 

“Angel.” Crowley glances down. “You can’t say shit like that. If you say that again, it’s— it’s the point of no return. I won’t be able to stop myself.” 

He can have this, Aziraphale reminds himself. This one time. He can indulge. He’ll just have to commit every single second of it to memory, have to allow Crowley to burn his touch into Aziraphale’s flesh so that he may live it a million times over— in his mind, on his lonely nights, in the late hours of the evening when nobody else would know. He can have this once and that once will have to be enough. 

“I don’t want you to stop yourself.” Aziraphale breathes and he watches as the words register in Crowley’s mind, watches as he pinches his eyes shut and takes in a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself. 

“Angel—“ 

“I don’t want you to stop yourself.” Aziraphale repeats, his thumb tracing Crowley’s cheek bone, the hand on his ass dragging him the tiniest bit closer. “I want you to have me, however you want me, right here on this conference table. I want you to make me  _ yours _ , Crowley.” 

“ _ Fuck _ .” Is all Crowley manages to get out before they’re kissing again. 

This time, with it all out on the table like that, there’s no hesitancy. Crowley allows Aziraphale to push his suit jacket off of his shoulders, tears off his own tie and throws it somewhere else entirely. Aziraphale leans back onto the table, hands in Crowley’s hair as Crowley finally untucks Aziraphale’s shirt and spreads it open wide, hands and mouth exploring the full expanse of skin now available to him. It feels good, so good, impossibly good. It feels like Heaven on Earth, the way Crowley explores his body, the way they give and take, folding around each other and melting together, as if they may become one being entirely. It’s not all together a bad idea, Aziraphale thinks as he feels Crowley press a kiss to his hip bone. 

“Angel,” Crowley pants, coming up to press his forehead against Aziraphale’s, his eyes closed. “I know what you said, but you have to tell me what you want. Where— how far is this going?” 

“I want you to take me anyway  _ you _ want, darling.” Aziraphale’s hands find Crowley’s shoulder blades, cupping them tenderly, his arms around Crowley in an embrace. 

“I want you in  _ every  _ way, angel.” Crowley mumbles, the words being torn out of him. His face flushes and this time Aziraphale knows it’s not the kissing that’s done it. 

There’s a quiet moment that follows the confession, a moment where Aziraphale feels his heart fill to near bursting in his chest. He takes in his own ragged breath, presses a kiss to Crowley’s lips. 

And then he pulls away, reclining back on the table, elbows propping him up as his legs surround Crowley’s hips. “So take me in  _ every  _ way.” 

They certainly don’t have time for that— they don’t have time for any of this, though that has long since become a moot point. Still, the implication strikes home in Crowley’s heart. Aziraphale sees it nestle in between his ribs, gripping him. He sees Crowley’s eyes darken again and just like that, there’s no turning back. 

It happens so fast, Aziraphale thinks blissfully. One second he’s drawing Crowley to him and the next, his belt is being undone, his trousers following them. Crowley seems to be everywhere at once, hands and lips, the occasional graze of teeth. Aziraphale participates as much as he possibly can, tugging Crowley’s shirt open and nearly tearing the buttons in the process. He kisses every inch of Crowley’s skin that he possibly can, dragging his fingers down Crowley’s back, through his hair, relishing the sounds that Crowley makes, the way he seems to be shaking apart completely. 

And just like that, they’re both messes, moaning each other’s name, grasping each other with trembling fingers, kissing away the words they want to say. Crowley instructs Aziraphale to scoot further back on the table and Aziraphale does, lifting his feet off the ground completely so that his entire body is poised near the middle of the table. Crowley leans down, curses a few times as he picks up and discards clothing items from the floor, clearly in search of something particular. Finally he finds it— his suit jacket. He snags it off the ground, fishing through the pockets until Aziraphale hears the telltale sound of tinfoil. 

“Is that—?” He asks, although he’s not entirely sure why. He certainly knows what it is and he’s very glad for it— the moment would rather be ruined if they didn’t have what they need. 

“Shut up.” Crowley grumbles as he comes back to the table, placing one knee on top of it and then hoisting himself up so that he’s hovering above Aziraphale. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“I rather think it  _ does _ .” Aziraphale replies, smiling fondly up at a very red Crowley above him. “Did you plan for this to happen?” 

“No!” Crowley replies hastily. He seems to catch himself and drops his head onto Aziraphale’s shoulder after a moment. “No.” He repeats more steadily this time. “I didn’t  _ plan  _ anything. But I thought, well, with the formal attire and the last few days and— and I didn’t know  _ who’s  _ flat we’d be going back to, you know? I wasn’t  _ planning _ but I wanted to— to be  _ prepared _ . Y’know. In case.” 

Crowley lets out a breath all at once and goes to pull away but Aziraphale catches him before he can. “I’m glad you were prepared. I, ah, wondered if the formal attire might lead to something similar to this. I was rather certain that you’d be too dashing to keep away from.” 

“You were?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale admits and he thinks that he’s likely as red as Crowley now. “And perhaps that’s a conversation that we should have but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not have it right now.” 

It’s not a  _ perhaps _ anymore— it’s a conversation they very definitely need to have. But this moment here, with Crowley hovering over him and both of them divested of the majority of their clothes was  _ not _ the moment to open that box.

Crowley laughs at that, warm and bright. “Don’t mind at all, angel.” 

And then his dastardly smile is back, softened only by the fond look in his eyes as he kisses Aziraphale again, his hands working together off to the side to do— 

Aziraphale hears the clear sound of something being uncapped and the sound of it seems to echo through the otherwise empty floor. Or what he continues to  _ hope _ is an empty floor, anyways. A thrill runs through his body at the sound of it and he kisses Crowley more fiercely, grinds their hips together with purpose and nearly loses his mind at the sounds he gets in return. He knows he’s making some sounds of his own but they don’t even register to him— his mind only has room for one thing and that thing is Crowley. 

He feels Crowley’s hand skid across his stomach, sliding lower and lower and lower until he has one finger hooked under the waistband of Aziraphale’s boxers. Crowley pulls back then and meets Aziraphale’s gaze, the question clear in his eyes. He’s giving Aziraphale another chance to back out if he’s changed his mind. 

Not that he could possibly change his mind. He had been painfully attracted to Crowley ever since the day they met, only Crowley’s grating attitude keeping him from thinking any further on that attraction. But now Crowley was kind, he was gentle and caring and that attraction flared to an unbearable level with nothing to temper it. Not to mention that Aziraphale already knew what Crowley felt like, knew the weight of Crowley’s cock on his tongue and it was addictive. There wasn’t an idiot alive who would say no to something as wonderful as this. 

Aziraphale reached down with his own hand and shucked his boxers off, maintaining eye contact with Crowley the entire time. There was a moment where Crowley’s eyes fluttered and he bit his lower lip, his hand smoothing down the now exposed skin to Aziraphale’s cock, gripping lightly at the base. Aziraphale threw his head back and moaned, the electricity of Crowley’s touch amplified in such a sensitive area. 

Crowley shifted above him, placing himself between Aziraphale’s legs and sitting back on his heels. His one hand worked a steady rhythm up and down Aziraphale’s cock while his other hand, finger cold with the lube, began to gently work at Aziraphale’s entrance. It didn’t hurt— Crowley was being too attentive for it to hurt, changing his angle every time Aziraphale made a sound that could even be slightly construed as negative— but Crowley kissed and nipped at his abdomen as additional distraction until he successfully had a finger all the way inside Aziraphale, pumping it at the same slow speed he was using to pump Aziraphale’s cock.

It almost feels like fireworks going off in Aziraphale’s veins and he can’t even imagine what it’s going to feel like to get the real thing. He closes his eyes and sees stars as Crowley carefully works in a second finger. Aziraphale’s breathing is just shallow gasps at this point, most of them sounding suspiciously like Crowley’s name and a few of them coming close to  _ ‘oh, yes, please!’ _

Crowley works steadily, his entire attention focused on Aziraphale. He murmurs encouragement back to Aziraphale, watching his reactions closely and constantly testing to see what Aziraphale likes the most. As it turns out, Aziraphale likes  _ everything _ the most as long as it involves Crowley. Every movement he makes is the most divine thing Aziraphale has ever been gifted and he thinks he might never get over this encounter. 

Finally, when Aziraphale is practically a trembling mess on the table, Crowley pulls away. He braces one hand next to Aziraphale’s head and leans down to kiss him as he lifts his hips and shimmies his trousers off with his other hand, kicking them unceremoniously to the ground. He keeps kissing Aziraphale, their breath mingling in the minuscule moments between kisses, as he reaches for the rubber that’s been sitting on the table by Aziraphale’s head this entire time.

“You can still say no, angel.” Crowley mumbles against his lips, kissing him between words as punctuation. 

“Anthony Crowley.” Aziraphale says as sternly as he possibly can. It’s not very stern at all given the situation but it stills Crowley all the same. “If you aren’t inside of me in five seconds—“ 

“ _ Christ, _ ” Crowley breathes as he tears the wrapper to the rubber open. “Who knew you’d be such a filthy talker?” 

“That’s hardly filthy!” Aziraphale protests as Crowley shifts around above him. “I could say many things far dirtier than that.” 

“Oh yeah?” Crowley challenges, and his eyes glint in the low light. Aziraphale loves him like this— a spiteful bastard who means well but loves a challenge. “Do go on, then.” 

And Aziraphale is an equally spiteful bastard who loves a challenge and won’t back down. “Alright then—“ he begins, only to have Crowley choose that exact moment to slide home inside of him, drawing out a long moan instead of any filthy words. Aziraphale thinks he might have transcended to a new universe. “You—“

“Me?” Crowley goads, holding still for a moment to make sure Aziraphale is alright. He is— more than alright, in fact. He feels divine, and he needs Crowley to start moving immediately. 

With a slight wiggle of his hips, Aziraphale indicates this and Crowley picks up on the signal right away. He starts slow, pulling almost all the way out before pushing back in. 

“You—“ Aziraphale starts to say again, but whatever argument he’d had on the tip of his tongue earlier is gone, replaced by the only truth that matters currently. “You feel so  _ good _ , Crowley.” 

Crowley’s arms, which had been supporting the entirety of his weight above Aziraphale tremble and give out at the words and suddenly he’s propped on his elbows just a few inches above Aziraphale, their gazes locked. The closeness only seems to increase the intensity of the electricity blazing between them and Aziraphale thinks that they may both burn down entirely. At least it’s a way to go, he reasons as Crowley snaps his hips forwards again, burying himself inside Aziraphale and kissing the long groan off of his lips. 

From there, the pace quickens. Whatever stupid competition they were in before is completely gone. Their fake marriage is gone, too. It’s nothing but the two of them, laid completely bare to each other— raw and real, gaping wounds and closed off hearts. It’s just them— who they really are at their cores, hidden in the depths of the darkness, in the middle of the night when they can’t sleep. There’s no facades between them now, no bargain, no crushing pressure of a lie to maintain. They’re here, now, tangled in each other because they  _ want  _ to be, even if they can’t say that out loud, even if it won’t be true tomorrow. In this moment, Aziraphale can’t think of a single thing he’d rather be doing. 

Overcome with the surprising emotions and vibrating with sensation, Aziraphale loses himself completely. There’s nothing on the smooth surface of the table for him to hold onto, so he clings to Crowley instead. He throws a hand over Crowley’s shoulders, his fingers digging into the flesh of his back. His other hand tangles in Crowley’s hair again, unable to find purchase anywhere else— or perhaps just unwilling to. Crowley adjusts the angles of his thirsts until he hits Aziraphale in just the right spot, causing Aziraphale to nearly jump off the table. Crowley pins him down with his body weight, his kisses, the sweet nothings he’s murmuring in Aziraphale’s ear. 

Aziraphale knows that he’s saying things too— he’s calling Crowley  _ darling _ , or telling him that he’s beautiful. At one point he’s fairly certain he mumbles some incoherent thoughts about how Crowley feels even better than he imagined. He’ll deny that one in the morning if he’s pressed about it. 

At some point their lips lock again, despite the bruising pace, and Crowley snakes a hand down between them to once again wrap around Aziraphale’s cock. The additional stimulation nearly has Aziraphale sobbing into Crowley’s mouth as he begs Crowley to  _ please, please keep going!  _ Crowley obliges, his thrusting becoming sloppy and uneven, but it feels just as good to Aziraphale. 

“Angel,” Crowley rasps, his voice as uneven as his pace, barely able to keep his eyes open with the sheer focus he’s dedicating to the moment. “Aziraphale— I— you—“ 

“Oh dear lord, Crowley,” Aziraphale babbles back, his back arched completely off the table as he finally gives in and comes from the sheer pleasure of everything. His mind goes blank, his vision white, the entire world shrinking around him until it’s just Crowley. Aziraphale doesn’t even have a sense of himself as he comes back down from his climax, but he has a sense of Crowley. He feels Crowley's hips stutter to a stop, hears the low moan that rips itself from Crowley’s throat as he comes. Aziraphale feels the bruising kiss that carries them both through their orgasms, the bridge that keeps them together as the rest of the world seems to flip on its head. 

The kiss softens, turns tender, and suddenly there’s a lot of emotion and unspoken words hiding behind their lips, begging to be let out. Aziraphale pulls away first, but not far, kissing Crowley’s cheek, his jaw, the closest shoulder he can reach. His hand stops digging into Crowley’s back, instead smoothing down the skin, just feeling the weight of him, the solid proof that he’s here and this happened. 

Crowley is panting above him, still braced on his elbows, eyes completely closed.

**[*end skip*]**

“That was—” He starts to say and the rest of the sentence abandons him.

Aziraphale presses another kiss to his shoulder, “I know.” 

“We should—“ Crowley begins again, then pauses and seems to rethink whatever he was going to say. Aziraphale waits with bated breath, disappointed when Crowley ends that sentence with “someone might find us. Should return to the party.”

He isn’t sure  _ why _ he feels a sinking in his stomach as Crowley starts to shift above him.  _ He _ had been the one to request that they don’t have their conversation tonight. Crowley was only doing as Aziraphale asked. What else was there to do? Spoon on this conference room table and whisper secrets into the night? That certainly wasn’t an option. Heading back to the party was the only reasonable thing they  _ could _ do. 

The weight of his heart is nearly unbearable, though, and that realization he had earlier is suddenly staring him in the face.

“The party.” Aziraphale says, the idea slowly filtering through the fog of his brain. “Right, yes, the party!” 

In truth, he had completely forgotten about the party, the open door— everything. There’s a crushing weight that accompanies the reality that is swiftly settling on his shoulders. This moment— as much as Aziraphale wants to wrap himself in it, wrap himself in Crowley— has to end. He has to climb off of this table and dress again, has to go back downstairs with the turmoil of emotions that is stirring in his gut. 

He shouldn’t feel this way— he shouldn’t feel awkward returning to the party after— after doing  _ that _ with his husband. Any fondness that may show on his face is completely permissible, any closeness he wants to feel to Crowley is something he can indulge in— something he is  _ expected  _ to indulge in. To everyone at the party, things will seem exactly as they should be. 

But he isn’t worried about everyone at the party, he is worried about Crowley. Beautiful, tender Crowley who might very well notice the shift in Aziraphale, who might put a name to these emotions before Aziraphale does. Crowley, who has taken the time to learn Aziraphale so thoroughly, it’s not at all unbelievable that he’ll feel the shift.

And even though this had developed into something real over the last month or so, that didn’t mean it was time for Aziraphale to go drop some sort of confession. It wasn’t time for Aziraphale to hang off of his every word, off of his arm, to drop any and all pretenses that they have been hiding behind.

No, he needs to get this together until they have their conversation after the holidays.

“Angel.” Crowley says as he slips out of him and then off the table entirely. There’s a tone to his voice that suggests that he can tell where Aziraphale’s thoughts are heading. “This was— great.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale agrees mildly, pressing up to a sitting position. He’s a right mess and he isn’t certain his legs would hold him if he tried to stand up, but he has appearances to maintain so he’s damn well going to  _ try _ . “It was.” 

Crowley lets out a long breath, as disapproving as a sound like that can be. He shakes his head for a minute before gesturing for Aziraphale to stay there. He snags his dress pants off the ground and slips them on, holding them shut at the waist instead of buttoning them up. He heads for the door, promising to come back in a moment with a means to clean Aziraphale up. 

The moment the conference room door shuts— properly shuts for the first time this evening— Aziraphale drops his head into his hands. Stupid, he tells himself. Just because Crowley was steadfastly proving that Aziraphale had been wrong about all of his ideas of Crowley didn’t mean that he had to go and get attached. It didn’t mean he had to get all these emotions involved in what was a very physical act. And yet here he was, lips trembling as his heart tried to find a steady rhythm to beat to again, feeling empty to his very core without the presence of Crowley. 

Stupid, stupid man. 

Aziraphale pushes himself off of the table, feeling sticky and generally unpleasant. His knees wobble for a moment and consider giving out on him, but ultimately they don’t. Aziraphale keeps one hand on the table as he bends over to begin collecting their clothes and putting them in two distinct piles on the table. He has to pull it together now, he tells himself, has to put back on his carefully crafted facade and return to the party as if none of this had happened. 

Not that he could possibly forget, not with Crowley just a step away from him for the rest of the night, not with the ache between his legs and in his heart to remind him with every movement what had happened here. 

But those were wounds Aziraphale could lick alone, later tonight, when he sorted through these conflicting feelings. Or at least, when he  _ considered _ sorting through them, though he knew it was far more likely that he was just going to do his best to stifle them completely. It was the right thing for both of them. He would curl up against Crowley’s back tonight, he would pull Crowley close and bury his face in Crowley’s hair and he would tell himself that this was it. He would start the countdown.

Because this  _ had _ to end. He knew he’d been saying that a lot, trying to convince himself of it when his heart was so determined to refuse it. They couldn’t lie forever, though, and this lie had already gotten so out of hand.  _ Something _ needed to be done, whether or not they wanted it to be done or not.

It would be okay, Aziraphale told himself. They would figure it out in a week. And until then he could— he could have anything Crowley offered him. If Crowley was the knife Aziraphale cut himself with, so be it.

The door opened and Aziraphale jumped, reaching for something to cover him when he realized that it was only Crowley returning with some wet paper towel and his pants on properly. He crossed the room and sheepishly offered the towels to Aziraphale who cleaned himself up before tossing the paper towel away. They dressed in relative silence, only the sound of their buckles and zippers breaking the tension in the air. 

Aziraphale is just finishing up the last knot on his bow tie when Crowley starts laughing next to him, a hand pressing into the tabletop to keep him steady. 

“What?” Aziraphale asks, uncertain if he should be offended. 

Crowley glances up, completely dressed but still without his sunglasses and Aziraphale is struck once again at how unfairly gorgeous he is. His hair is half tied up again, leaving his bare eyes as the focal point of his face and Aziraphale feels his mouth dry at the sight. 

“I just remembered,” Crowley says breathlessly, his smile wide. “Don’t you have a meeting with Beelzebub next week?”

Aziraphale does not, in any way, see how this train of thought could have possibly entered Crowley’s mind. “Yes?”

Crowley cackles again, throwing his head back with the laughter. “Well, I have to imagine this is where you’ll be meeting them.” Crowley replies, sweeping his arms out wide to indicate the conference room. Aziraphale feels his heart sink. Crowley crosses the room to stand in front of Aziraphale again. “Good luck focusing on business then. Bet you’ll be too busy picturing me naked instead.” 

“Good lord, Crowley—“ Aziraphale starts to say. 

But whatever he was going to say is kissed right off his lips and swallowed whole. 

* * *

Okay so Crowley hadn’t lied when he’d said he wanted to be prepared, but he hadn’t been planning on a conference room fuck because, well, who would plan on something like that? Not that he was upset with it, of course. Not that he could  _ ever  _ be upset with it.

It was nothing like he had imagined his first time with Aziraphale going, but it was still better than his wildest dreams. The way Aziraphale had  _ felt _ , the way he had  _ sounded _ — Crowley would be dreaming about it for months.

They had returned to the party after, seamlessly blending back into the crowd as if they had never left. Gabriel was nowhere to be found and Beelzebub was engrossed in conversation with someone Crowley didn’t recognize. Crowley was absolutely beat and more than willing to go home but there was something crestfallen about Aziraphale, some storm cloud that was gathering above his head after what they’d done.

Crowley could take one guess as to why and even though it made his stomach clench to think about it, he knew he had to address it.

“Angel,” They were right on the edge of what was supposed to be considered a dance floor. A slow song was playing overhead and a few couples swayed from side to side as they listened to it. Aziraphale turned to him. “Dance with me?”

“What?”

“C’mere.” Crowley reached out for Aziraphale’s hand, pulling Aziraphale to him. Aziraphale came willingly, his eyes wide as he settled a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, the other twinning their fingers together, They, too, began to sway from side to side, no real rhythm to what they were doing but they were perfectly in sync anyways. “Get out of your head.”

Aziraphale looked up at him, his blue eyes shadowed. “I don’t—”

“I wanted to do that.” Crowley murmurs and it feels like he’s exposing the bare bones of his heart, like he’s putting all of himself on display. He hates the feeling of it but he’s willing to do it for Aziraphale. “I  _ wanted _ to. Do you understand? So stop trying to talk yourself into whatever twisted version of that you’re making up.”

“How did you—?”

“I know you, angel. It’s written on your face.”

“Promise me—” Aziraphale starts and he sounds choked up. Crowley feels his own throat get tight. “Promise me that we won’t have hard feelings between us, no matter how this ends.”

“Are you planning on breaking my heart, angel?” It’s meant to be at least a little bit of a joke, but there’s not a hint of any joke in there. It comes out broken, ragged, desperate and painfully hopeful at the same time.

“I certainly don’t want to.” Aziraphale murmurs, but he isn’t looking into Crowley’s eyes.

Crowley doesn’t want to press, doesn’t want to hear whatever else Aziraphale has to say on the issue, So he pulls him closer and murmurs a quiet “I promise” into the curls on the top of his head.

It’s not a promise he’s certain he can keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you follow me on twitter, you might recognize the majority of that smut scene as the one I threw out there months ago. I had to tweak it somewhat to fit its place in the fic now. I've been DYING to share it with everyone since I wrote it so I hope it lives up to expectations!
> 
> Also I'm sorry that some of these scenes aren't super flushed out. This chapter got long enough, I figured I shouldn't make it longer.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He draws in a breath and tries to steady himself. “They’re not.” He agrees. “But you are. And angel, I—“
> 
> He pauses, hesitates.
> 
> Aziraphale looks up at him, blue eyes sadder than Crowley has ever seen them. He feels the words shrivel and die on his tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and most importantly, I want to thank you guys for being so kind and patient with me. I know this chapter is a few days late, I've been slowly working on it. I'm trying to change my language in 2021 to stop saying "I'm sorry" (especially for things I know you guys understand) and start saying "thank you". Like this! Thank you for waiting for me and for being so incredibly understanding as I've been slowly working through everything. I am truly so lucky to have you guys around and to have your love, and I promise I know it!
> 
> Secondly, happy new year! I hope 2021 is a great year for all of you, I'm really excited to be kicking it off here with you guys. First post of the new year!! 
> 
> Third, if you guys want to thank anyone for the existence of this chapter, you should be thanking [hanap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/pseuds/hanap) and [NaroMoreau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaroMoreau/pseuds/NaroMoreau) because they dragged me through this chapter when I was trying my very best to just pretend I didn't have it hanging over my head. Their never-ending encouragement and the way they are ALWAYS there to listen to me is the absolute world to me. I would haven fallen so much further behind by now if I didn't have them in my corner. Truly, we all owe so much of this fic to them <3
> 
> Fourth, if you haven't seen the amazing art for this fic yet, I suggest you go take a peek at the end of chapter 6 because BOY IS IT A TREAT. I'M IN LOVE!!!!
> 
> This chapter is not the big fallout, but I will warn you that seeds of that fallout are starting to be sewn so this chapter does have some sadness. I hope you enjoy and I'm going to do my best to jump right into the next chapter and to hop back on a proper updating schedule this week (while still weaving the very belated Christmas fic in there, too).

It’s been a long time since Crowley has had to be somewhere that required him to dress nicely. The party last week is a rare exception and also a specific special event, so it doesn’t count. Their meeting with Gabriel at the University is nothing more than a business meeting and yet Crowley finds himself standing in front of his closet of mostly black garments with a few hints of red and wondering just how terribly he might embarrass Aziraphale if he shows up in his normal attire. 

Aziraphale hasn’t said anything about the way he dresses and hasn’t even hinted that he may need to change that for the sake of this meeting which should give Crowley some comfort— Aziraphale has certainly never bothered to hold his tongue in regards to Crowley in the past, so there was no reason to assume he’d start now. By all logic, the closer people got, the more honest they tended to be. So if Aziraphale was brutally honest with him  _ before  _ all of this, Crowley could only assume that he would have said something if he wanted Crowley to dress differently.

But that didn’t stop Crowley from  _ feeling _ like he ought to.

The honest truth— the one that was, dfrankly, plain as day to see— was that Crowley didn’t belong on the campus of a University. He didn’t fit the part of a professor by a mile and he didn’t really fit the part of the professor’s husband, either, which is the role he was meant to be playing. Everything about him was likely to stick out like a sore thumb, especially considering the discomfort he had in this sort of situation after he’d parted from his own research opportunity.

But, like in a lot of situations recently, how he felt about it didn’t actually matter. It was something he needed to do, a commitment he had made that he had to live up to. So, with a certain amount of resignation he pulled out a pair of jeans and a casual black jumper. It was the closest thing to ‘professional’ that he owned and it was just going to have to do.

If only it could do anything to settle the nerves that were simmering low in his gut.

Ultimately he knew it was because the holidays were over and this thing that they shared was— well, it was coming to a conclusion soon. Crowley wasn’t really sure what that conclusion was gong to be but he could feel it looming over them like a storm cloud that was waiting for just the right moment to burst. He just hoped it was the kind of storm that brought a rainbow, not the kind that washed everything away.

Aziraphale was waiting for him in the family room, likely scrolling through his emails and trying to reply to as many of them as he could. Unlike Crowley, Aziraphale did his best to get back to the fans and to acknowledge whatever thoughts they had or answer any questions they might have come up with after reading his articles. It had been something that had been time consuming but easy enough for him to keep on top of before their Christmas panel but now it was damn near impossible. Still, he had told Crowley that he was determined to try. It wasn’t fair that some people didn’t get replies simply because he had gotten busy, he said. He had made time for it before and he was determined to make time for it again. Admittedly, Crowley respected that.

Not enough to even attempt to keep up on his own emails, of course, but he did have respect for Aziraphale’s consistency and dedication to his fans.

_ Fans _ . It was still weird to Crowley to think that either of them had people who considered themselves  _ fans _ of either him or Aziraphale. And ever since their joint column had gone viral damn near every day, it felt like they had fans in every corner of the globe. It was incredible, really, all the places Crowley saw his name getting dropped, all the conversations he was mentioned in without actually being a part of them. He’d been relatively well known before but this was a whole new level of recognition that he wasn’t sure what to do with.

“Ready?” Crowley leans against the door frame that leads from the kitchen and into the family room where Aziraphale is dutifully scrolling on his computer. “We’re supposed to meet him in an hour.”

“I’m quite aware of the time.” Aziraphale says mildly as he clicks away on his keyboard. “If you’d be kind enough to give me five more minutes, we can leave and still be—” Aziraphale glances up from his laptop screen and his eyes catch on Crowley and his unusual outfit. The next words tumble out of Aziraphale’s mouth almost as an afterthought, as if he isn’t even sure he’s actually saying them. “On time.”

Crowley glances down at his jumper and then back at Aziraphale, “Er, right. Sure, yeah. I’ll just grab a drink while you finish up.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale says, but his voice sounds tight and his eyes haven’t yet made it all the way up to Crowley’s face. “That would— that would work well.”

“You alright, angel?” Crowley asks, and he ducks his head the tiniest bit to catch Aziraphale’s gaze. 

Aziraphale seems to catch himself all at once and he snaps his eyes up to meet Crowley’s, a faint blush dusting his cheeks. It takes Crowley by surprise, even though he has seen Aziraphale flush more than once. Even though he’s been the  _ reason _ for Aziraphale blushing many times by now. It still takes him by surprise everytime and his heart stutters in between beats, flipping in his chest at the sight of it. It has no right to still make him react like this, honestly. Not when he’s seen it so many times, not when he’s caused it both on accident and on purpose. It doesn’t have the  _ right _ to make his fingers shake but it  _ does _ . As Aziraphale’s eyes trail down him one more time, the flush darkening across his cheeks and spreading to the tips of his ears, Crowley feels himself shaking apart at the seams.

He needs to tell Aziraphale. 

It’s a realization he’s been coming to slowly. Well, that’s not fair to say. It’s a realization he had all at once and then immediately shoved away and ignored. It’s a realization that has been steadily and slowly forcing him to look at it, forcing him to consider it. And now it was a near constant thing, thrumming through his body with his blood. It was there, in the core of him now, waiting to be let out, to be released, to be put into words so that it was  _ real _ . 

Of course, Crowley didn’t have any actual  _ desire _ to tell Aziraphale. If not for the relief that he would get from finally putting the words out there, he wouldn’t even be  _ considering _ it. Telling Aziraphale had far more potential to go wrong than it did to go right. Maybe last week Crowley would’ve felt differently, maybe last week he would’ve harbored some thread of hope that this was going to work out alright. But then Aziraphale had asked him to promise that they’d have no hard feeling when this whole thing ended and, well—  _ that _ wasn’t really a comforting thing. 

Crowley wanted desperately to keep that promise, though. He wanted to keep it because he didn’t want this to end. He didn’t want there to be a reason for hard feelings. He wanted to have a reason for good feelings, for happiness. He wanted to continue to have a reason to wake up to Aziraphale pressed to his side, to kiss Aziraphale under the safety of their covers, to be able to reach for him in front of everyone. He wanted to keep being able to do what he was doing but he wanted it to be genuine, not some farce to keep them both safe. 

“Quite.” Aziraphale seems to shake himself out of whatever train of thought he had boarded the moment Crowley had stepped into the room. “I’m just not sure I’ve ever seen you in anything so— “ Aziraphale gestures with his hand to encompass Crowley’s entire outfit. “You look lovely, darling.”

“Is it alright?” Crowley glances down at the jumper and plucks at it with two fingers. It’s definitely looser on him than his normal clothes. Not  _ loose _ , but not clinging to every angle of his body, either. “I can change if you want. Gotta be honest here, angel. I don’t have anything in my closet that will make me look like the dutiful professor.”

That earns a bit of a chuckle from Aziraphale as he shuts his laptop. “I don’t expect you to look like anything other than yourself.”

Crowley makes some sort of half aborted gesture and a few noises that Aziraphale just smiles through as he waits for Crowley to turn that into some semblance of an actual statement. For a moment, Crowley wonders when they had gotten to this point— this compromise, this understanding, this ability to read and work around each other with ease. He wonders when Aziraphale stopped being impatient about his noises, because he certainly had been when they’d first met. Crowley had sat through more than one lecture about how he was to  _ use his words _ if he wanted anyone else to understand what he was saying. He’d sneered at Aziraphale every time and refused to make a coherent point.

But now Aziraphale knew to wait. And sometimes he even understood Crowley’s bizarre noises, sometimes he pieced together what Crowley was going for  _ without _ waiting for him to pull the words together to explain it properly. It was strange, really, Crowley realizes all at once. He hadn’t really even realized that it was happening, that they were developing this sort of language of their own. He hadn’t thought about the fact that Aziraphale had learned to understand him and fill in the blanks. 

_ God _ . He really needed to just put them both out of their misery and tell Aziraphale.

And even though Crowley was certain that it was going to end terrible, certain that Aziraphale had asked him not to have hard feelings because he was planning on ending this soon, he needed to say something. Worst case scenario, he rips the bandaid off sooner and breaks his own heart before Aziraphale has a chance to. Because, really, at this point, Crowley knows he’s going to get his heart broken. He can’t deny it any longer, can’t act like he doesn’t love this life they’ve created together. He can’t act like having it taken away from him won’t feel like ripping out a piece of his soul, won’t feel like a disruption to the very foundation of his life. 

It’s going to be the end of everything good he’s had in his life and he knows it. 

So he might as well rush it along.

“Come on, darling.” Aziraphale interrupts Crowley’s thoughts as he stands from the couch and crosses the room to meet Crowley in the doorway. “I think I’ve wasted more than those five minutes you courteously afforded me. We ought to get going if we don’t want to be late.”

Later, Crowley tells himself. He’ll tell Aziraphale later.

“You sure you don’t want me to change? I don’t want the whole university to think you married—”

Aziraphale raises an eyebrow at him. “Think I married?” he prompts when Crowley leaves that sentence hanging.

“Me.”

There’s a sad smile that fits to the corners of Aziraphale’s mouth and Crowley doesn’t like to see it. He likes to see Aziraphale’s happy smiles, his bastardly ones. He likes seeing the gleam that comes in Aziraphale’s eye when he’s laughing at something Crowley said. He doesn’t like the way Aziraphale’s eyes look haunted by his thoughts now, doesn’t like the way his smile looks hollow on the inside.

“But I did marry you, darling.” Aziraphale says instead. And when he leans in to kiss Crowley, there’s an undertone of that same sadness on his tongue, Crowley can taste it against his lips. It’s a bittersweet taste and Crowley hopes, desperately, wildly, that he doesn’t have to get used to it. “And I’d do it again.”

* * *

It had actually been a rather long time since Aziraphale had stepped foot on the campus of his University. Even previous to his arrangement with Crowley and then his permanent job with  _ Hellfire _ , Aziraphale had done everything in his power to make all of his communications by email. He had come the one time to talk to Gabriel about his four-week trial with  _ Hellfire _ , but outside of that it had likely been months.

The University campus is always beautiful, even in the winter. The fall is Aziraphale’s favorite season on campus, when the large trees change colors and begin to drop their leaves to the ground like elegant blankets around their trunks. The winter is still beautiful, though, snow covering the ground and sitting delicately on the bare branches of the trees. It makes the University look more elegant, Aziraphale thinks as he huddles deep into his coat and scarf, ducking his head against the biting wind as he leads Crowley across the campus and to the Literature building where they will find Gabriel’s office.

Gabriel had sent them a series of emails trying to get this scheduled and it only ended up happening because Crowley had gotten so sick of seeing Gabriel’s name in his inbox— Gabriel had been smart enough to include both of them  _ and _ Beelzebub on all the emails to ensure a response— and had thus replied just to stop having to interact with the man. It had hardly been a successful endeavor, really. Gabriel had just flooded their inboxes with different emails— times and dates, information on the conference the university was holding, things that honestly didn’t need to be emails at all because they all involved in-person discussions. 

But that was the thing about Gabriel: he liked hearing himself talk so much that it even extended into writing. He just had a lot of words—many of them repetitive, a lot of them pointless— and he liked to fill his days up by using those words, whether or not it actually benefitted someone else or not. Aziraphale had learned a long time ago how to filter out the useless information and pinpoint only what he needed to know while scrolling through Gabriel’s multi-page emails. Crowley had not ever had a chance to learn that technique and had, instead, spent a series of time bemoaning Gabriel and his annoying tendencies and Aziraphale would be lying if he said he didn’t find it both amusing and vindicating. 

Crowley had tried to push the meeting out just to be petty, Aziraphale assumed. He would’ve been perfectly happy for the meeting to never happen but eventually Beelzebub— who had their numbers far too well for someone who hadn’t known them that long— had stepped in and settled everything. And that was how Aziraphale found himself pacing quickly through a flurry of snowflakes with Crowley at his side, stomach churning more with each step. 

Aziraphale had meant what he’d said to Crowley earlier and that fact alarmed him. He shouldn’t be thinking that way about Crowley, shouldn’t be  _ feeling  _ that way about him. What he needed to be doing and focusing on was a plan to get them out of this mess. The holidays were over, their joint assignment was completed and far more popular than anyone had predicted it would be. This lie was starting to become a noose, tightening around his throat and boxing him into a corner. 

It was easy—  _ so easy—  _ to lose himself in it when it was just him and Crowley. It was so easy to trace the angles of Crowley’s body with his fingers, to taste Crowley’s skin against his tongue. It was even easier to fall into his side on the couch, throwing a blanket over the both of them, wine in one hand while he snacked off of a tray that rested on Crowley’s lap. It was easy to bicker with Crowley, to laugh at Crowley, to share all of his darkest secrets with Crowley. When it was just the two of them, it was unbearably easy. 

He hadn’t given Crowley a fair shake in the beginning and he could admit that. Crowley had turned out to be so much more than Aziraphale expected, had turned out to have reasons for actions that Aziraphale had never even considered. And even if Crowley didn’t have a backstory, even if he hadn’t been run out of his old job, hadn’t been forced to give up his research, it didn’t matter. Whether Aziraphale found substance in the things Crowley wrote or not,  _ other people  _ did, and Aziraphale had been underestimating that for a long time. 

Now that he worked for  _ Hellfire  _ and had the freedom to write whatever he wanted— including things that most people couldn’t possibly care less about— he saw the value of it. He got so many comments, so many messages and emails of people agreeing with him, people saying that his article sparked a fun debate between them and friends. He heard from people who wanted him to know that they felt heard, or that they had learned something from him. 

It wasn’t the hard-hitting, meticulously researched writing he was used to, but it was still  _ reaching  _ people and that was something Aziraphale had not given enough credit to before. All this time Crowley had been providing people with laughs, with anecdotes they could use as ice breakers, he had been entertaining them and positively impacting their days and Aziraphale had sat there stewing in his disdain as if what Crowley was doing had been inferior when, in fact, it potentially had been having  _ more  _ impact than anything Aziraphale had ever done. 

And honestly, even if Crowley’s writing had been the drivel Aziraphale had always assumed it to be, it wasn’t enough to judge Crowley as harshly as he had. Because Crowley was so much more than his writing. He was kind, giving, sacrificing. He was constantly putting other people— especially Aziraphale— first. He would pay for the coffee of the person behind him, hold the door for the mother and her stroller, help an old lady cross the street. He was brilliant and witty and able to keep Aziraphale on his toes during a deep conversation, open minded enough to hear an opinion opposite of his own but secure enough to make his own counterpoints. 

Of course, he was as dastardly as Aziraphale had always said, that hadn’t changed. He did everything in his power to get a rise out of Hastur, he bent over backwards to inconvenience Gabriel and he certainly tried sticking it to Beelzebub a time or two. But these were things that Aziraphale suddenly found endearing. 

And, of course, Crowley was unfairly beautiful. That was also something Aziraphale had been right about from the very beginning but he’d never allowed himself to acknowledge it. 

He  _ was _ stunning though, all long legs and sharp edges, a casual aloofness that just screamed cool. He wasn’t nearly as cool as he looked, Aziraphale thought with a fond smile as he glanced over at Crowley who was strolling next to him with his hands shoved in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the cold. His hair was all the way down today in what Aziraphale assumed was an attempt to keep his ears warm, and the longer edges of his hair caught the wind and floated around him beautifully. He was by far the most gorgeous man Aziraphale had ever seen, that had been true from the beginning. But now that he knew what Crowley looked like with a flush darkening all the way down to his chest, now that he knew what Crowley looked like when he was drunk and glowing with happiness, what he looked like when Crowley was asleep next to him, hair a red halo around him— 

Well, now Aziraphale was absolutely beyond certain that he would never see a more beautiful person for as long as he lived. 

“Christ,” Crowley grumbles from next to him and Aziraphale feels a bubble of warmth form in his chest because he already knows what Crowley is going to complain about before the words even leave his lips. “How big is this campus? I feel like we’ve been walking for hours.”

“It’s not as bad as all that.” Aziraphale dismisses, but he reaches out to thread his arm through Crowley’s and tugs Crowley closer to his side. “But we are almost there.”

Crowley glances over at him, his cheeks dusted in pink but Aziraphale thinks it was already there, a reaction to the cold wind that keeps whipping at them and needling its way under their clothes and into their bones. “About time.”

“I know you’re cold-blooded.” Aziraphale murmurs and Crowley makes a strange noise that he thinks is meant to be contradictory but isn’t, not really. “You could’ve just asked me to keep you warm, darling.”

“Fuck off.” Crowley grumbles and he turns his head away, the color on his cheeks darkening enough that Aziraphale knows it’s no longer just the cold. 

Aziraphale chuckles quietly and steers them through the quad and to the building they’re meant to be in. The moment Aziraphale pulls open the door and steps aside to allow Crowley in, he hears Crowley let out a breath of relief and sees as he practically melts into a puddle on the floor. 

“Honestly, I don’t think it would kill you to wear a scarf every once in a while.” Aziraphale tuts as he steps in behind Crowley and lets the door swing shut behind him. “Or even a hat.”

“I don’t even  _ own _ those things.” Crowley bites back, but it’s mostly empty. He rubs his hands together furiously to try and get some feeling back in his cold fingertips.

With a sigh, Aziraphale reaches out to cup both of Crowley’s hands in his, bringing them up to his mouth and gently blowing into his cupped palms to help and warm them up faster. Crowley is staring at him with his mouth slightly parted and his eyes wide, even behind his sunglasses. He looks like he’s on the precipice of saying  _ something _ , though Aziraphale can’t quite guess what it would be, and he finds that he’s about ready to hold his breath in anticipation of whatever it is, completely unable to break the eye contact they’ve made as his lips brush the tips of Crowley’s fingers.

This is, of course, how Gabriel finds them.

Aziraphale wants to melt into his own puddle on the floor as the booming voice of Gabriel reverberates throughout the hallway, “Aziraphale! Crowley! Right on time, I’m impressed!”

Crowley is the first to whip his head around, staring at Gabriel with eyes still as wide as saucers. At least, Aziraphale thinks, Gabriel won’t be able to tell that. Gabriel doesn’t have the practice Aziraphale has of reading Crowley’s expressions, he isn’t used to looking through those dark lenses to puzzle out what’s behind them and then to find the meaning in what he sees there. 

Slowly, almost painfully, Aziraphale lowers their conjoined hands and then lets go of Crowley’s, both of their respective hands falling back to their own sides. 

“Gabriel.” Crowley says and Aziraphale isn’t sure if it’s actually a greeting or just a general acknowledgment of Gabriel’s existence. 

“Hello, Gabriel.” Aziraphale greets more formally, turning finally to plaster on his perfectly practiced and fake smile, the one Gabriel is entirely used to staring at and ignoring. 

“Come in, come in!” Gabriel waves them over and gestures to the door to his office, “Beelzebub is already waiting inside.”

Aziraphale exchanges a long look with Crowley before taking off after Gabriel, each step feeling like it’s leading him in a direction he absolutely does not want to go.

* * *

Like most work related things, it doesn’t end up being an option. Gabriel and Beelzebub don’t even present it to them as an option. Gabriel starts right in with the fact that he’s already told the people running the conference that they’ll hold a panel, all that’s left to do is decide how exactly they want their panel to go.

That, surprisingly, is also not up to either him or Aziraphale in any way whatsoever. Crowley had though that he’d at least get a say in what he was to spend an hour talking about, but no. Gabriel and Beelzebub mostly bounced ideas off of each other, back and forth, talking right over their heads until they had settled on perhaps the last thing Crowley would have ever wanted to be a part of: a Q&A panel.

With Crowley and Aziraphale both being significantly well known by now, Beelzebub had figured that people would have a lot of questions. Especially since it had come out how secretive they had been about their marriage over the years. Crowley had tried not to choke on the sip of water he’d been taking at that moment, the sharp glance Aziraphale shot him the only thing that kept him from barking out a surprised laugh that would not be easy to play off. 

Even if his marriage with Aziraphale was real, Crowley wouldn’t want to participate in a Q&A panel. He made that as clear as he possibly could but Gabriel interrupted him and spoke over the end of his sentence, plowing on to some new topic that nobody actually cared about, least of all Crowley. He had tried to hit Beelzebub with his most pleading look but even that had been ineffective.

“Well,” Gabriel continues, the only one who has spoken in the last five minutes probably. Not that Crowley has really listened to much of what he’d said after it became clear that he didn’t get to have thoughts on anything being discussed. “There’s not much planning we can do. It’s not like we know what the crowd is going to ask you!”

“I still think you guys should prepare a little presentation.” Beelzebub cuts in and honestly, Crowley is impressed at their ability to be entirely unruffled by Gabriel. Crowley certainly isn’t afraid of the guy, but he does find him so grating that Crowley finds he’d rather just walk out of the room than try to get Gabriel to shut up long enough to allow someone else to edge a word in. “Some background information to guide them, to let them ask about.”

“I don’t want them to ask about anything.” Crowley shoots but he knows it’s going to be ignored. And it is, completely.

“That’s an excellent idea!” Gabriel claps Beelzebub on the shoulder and Crowley thinks, not for the first time, that Beelzebub would have quite the body count if looks could kill.

They pull out from under Gabriel’s hand, their expression shuttering closed. 

Crowley just wants to be out of here, he wants this to be over. He wants to go home and collapse in bed, burrowing under the covers for the next three days, minimum. But it doesn’t look like it has the potential of going that way. Aziraphale, seeming to sense his discomfort, places a hand gently on his knee. Crowley glances over to see Aziraphale giving him a fond smile, only looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. Crowley places his hand on top of Aziraphale’s and squeezes, finding comfort in the moment. 

Gabriel and Beelzebub are entirely unaware of the moment they’re sharing, blazing through the conversation without hesitation. Crowley reclines in his chair, hand still wrapped around Aziraphale’s, and just waits for it to be over. It doesn’t take too long. Gabriel dominates the majority of the conversation and Beelzebub nods along instead of rolling their eyes which Crowley finds commendable. Aziraphale doesn’t say or do anything, just sits there steadily in his chair, eyes darting back and forth between their two bosses and never once even  _ considering  _ interjecting with ideas of his own.

Crowley’s about three seconds away from throwing his head back against the chair and trying to catch a quick nap when it finally ends. Gabriel and Beelzebub shake hands, neither one making the first move to let go and Crowley can feel his agitation with the whole thing growing. Finally, Gabriel pulls away and he looks a little put out by it, his mega wattage smile a few dimmer than usual. 

“Right.” Gabriel says after a moment, pointedly looking away from Beelzebub. “Well, Beelzebub and I will come up with an outline of the topics we would like you to touch on in the first half of your presentation. Mostly easy stuff— your careers, how you two met, what led you both to writing, the obvious stuff that people will want to know about. And from there it will be opened up to questions by the people in attendance.”

“I’m sure we can scrape something together,” Aziraphale speaks for perhaps the first time since they’d stepped foot inside Gabriel’s office. His voice is about as stiff as his spine and it makes Crowley feel a little angry to know that he has mastered the art of not being seen when in front of Gabriel. “Right, darling?”

If it weren’t for Aziraphale, Crowley would tell Gabriel to go fuck himself and would laugh in the face of his assignment. He knows enough about Gabriel’s personality to understand that Gabriel managed by belittling and demeaning the people beneath him, asserting his authority as much as possible as if it were something he could put on display to gain respect. The problem with that was simple though— that isn’t how to gain respect. For Gabriel to gain the respect of the people he works with, he needs to treat them with respect first, to listen to them and to help foster and grow their ideas.

Unfortunately for Gabriel, Crowley was not the kind of person to give respect blindly and he certainly wasn’t the kind of person to be belittled. Crowley didn’t think there was a single thing Gabriel could say that would actually make him feel bad about himself or put him back “in line”— that, of course, being wherever Gabriel wanted him to be. So if it were just Crowley and Gabriel, this would be a nasty situation. But it’s not just Gabriel and Crowley, Aziraphale is involved too and Aziraphale is the one person Crowley will put on his best behavior for. Aziraphale is the only person who can reign in Crowley’s naturally defiant streak and can get him to bite back whatever rude comment is on the tip of his tongue, choosing peace over honesty.

“Sure we can.” Crowley stands from his chair and stretches his legs pointedly, discreetly trying to demonstrate just how boring he found this conversation. “And it’ll be properly interesting, I’m sure.”

Aziraphale huffs as he stands up, too, shooting Crowley a sharp look out of the corner of his eye. Crowley grins sweetly at him as he steps around his chair and starts hedging towards the door. Gabriel gives them a dismissive wave of his hand and Crowley takes the opportunity that has been presented to him. He damn near drags Aziraphale out of the door while Aziraphale gives a proper thank you and promises of what they’ll accomplish and when. Crowley doesn’t listen, doesn’t care. He’ll skim the email when Gabriel sends it to them, just enough for him to know how long he has to procrastinate on the assignment. 

They make it out the door and back into the hallway that’s lined with doors to different classrooms. Crowley knows better than to start complaining now where someone else may overhear them but the urge is tempting. He lets out a huff of a breath and turns to look at Aziraphale who looks emotionally and mentally worn out, even though they hadn’t actually done anything in the last hour. They just need to get to the car, Crowley tells himself, and then he can bitch about Gabriel all he wants. Hell, they don’t even need to make it to the car, he can start in on Gabriel as soon as they’re in the quad as long as he’s quiet enough about it. Aziraphale will likely give him a hard time for it regardless, but he won’t shut Crowley down, he’ll just shush him as if what he’s saying is scandalous— and it sort of  _ will _ be, there’s no doubting that—and glance over their shoulders. But when Crowley presses on, and he will because he has  _ plenty _ of things to say, Aziraphale won’t stop him, not really.

“C’mon, angel.” Crowley reaches for Aziraphale and slides his fingers down Aziraphale’s forearm, across his wrist and palm and eventually through Aziraphale’s own fingers. “Let’s go—“

The end of his sentence is cut off by the sound of a door slamming shut and a gasp from behind him. Crowley turns around to find a woman standing in the hallway, her wide eyes fixed on their conjoined hands. 

“It’s true.” She says quietly, and then she’s scanning up Crowley’s arm, across his torso and all the way to his face. Crowley can feel the weight of her gaze burning a trail across his skin as she takes in every detail of him. “You’re—“

“Er.” Crowley says, glancing back at Aziraphale who looks resigned to whatever is clearly about to unfold. “Crowley.”

“Oh, you simply  _ must _ come meet everyone.” She suddenly crosses the hallway to grab the wrist of Crowley’s free hand, tugging the two of them together towards some different room that Crowley has no desire to actually go to.

“Michael, please.” Aziraphale chides as he falls into step next to Crowley. “This absolutely is not necessary.”

“Do you know,” Michael, apparently, ignores Aziraphale entirely and glances sideways at Crowley as she speaks. “That he hasn’t told us a lick about you in all the years that he’s been here?”

“Course I know.” Crowley replies evenly. “We agreed to keep our marriage low-key.”

“You  _ knew _ he wasn’t telling us about you? We tried to set him up on  _ dates! _ ”

At that, Crowley cracks a bit of a smile. He can only imagine how terribly flustered Aziraphale would be if his coworkers tried to set him up with someone. It’s not often that Aziraphale comes across as inarticulate, but trying to politely decline a date would no doubt be the sort of thing that would make him flustered enough to lose his coherency and Crowley loves the mental image of it. Aziraphale, behind his desk, clutching a pen so tightly in his hand that his knuckles turn white, his cheeks absolutely aflame as he spluttered out some nonsense about how he didn’t have  _ time _ for this and really, didn’t the rest of them have more important things to do than bother him?

“Ah, yeah.” Crowley’s small smile is an outright grin now as he glances at Aziraphale to see him halfway to the flustered image that Crowley has in his mind. “Had a good laugh about those, we did.”

That seems to stop Michael in her tracks and she whirls around to stare at him, her hair flying over her shoulder and nearly whipping Crowley in the face. “You weren’t mad?”

“He didn’t say yes to any of them, did he?”

“Well, no, he didn’t.”

Crowley raises a shoulder in a shrug. “Then what’s there to be mad about?”

And it’s more true than Michael realizes. Crowley has absolutely no reason to be mad not just because Aziraphale never said yes to these dates but also because they weren’t actually married. Even if Aziraphale  _ had _ said yes, it wouldn’t be like he was cheating on Crowley. It doesn’t stop the idea from making his stomach roil, though. 

Crowley tries to keep his grin, tries not to let the edges dim as he starts to picture Aziraphale sitting in a restaurant across from someone that isn’t him, laughing and leaning across the table to place his hand over someone else’s. He tries not to picture Aziraphale wrapping his arm around someone else’s, Aziraphale leaning in to whisper in someone’s ear in the middle of a play. All of the things they’ve done, Aziraphale could have done with someone else— could  _ still _ do with someone else if he wanted to, there was no actual commitment here.

The emotions swirling around inside of him might be starting to show on his face and Crowley tries his best to school his expression back into that aloof yet amused expression he has perfected over the years. He’s practiced it so many times— especially in the months following his fallout with his university— that it comes naturally to him, slides easily onto his face and morphs his features without any actual thought on his part. It doesn’t do anything to actually change the ache deep in his chest, the pang that sweeps through him with each beat of his heart, but it at least keeps the others from knowing that it’s there and for now, that will be enough.

“That’s quite enough.” Aziraphale tries to sound stern and fails by about a mile. His cheeks are still too flushed for it to be believable and he’s not quite looking at either Crowley or Michael, instead staring somewhere vaguely between the two of them with his eyebrows knitted together in determination. “There’s no need to be talking about this. And I’m afraid we can’t stay, Michael, we have other things we need to be doing. Right, Crowley?”

“Right.” Crowley agrees dutifully. “Busy schedules.”

“No, none of that.” Michael seems to shake out of her surprise and begins marching down the hallway again, towing both Crowley and Aziraphale behind her with more force than before. “You have to at least stop in and say hi to the others so they know you’re real. They won’t believe me if I say I met you.”

“That’s just rude.” Aziraphale huffs, but he doesn’t protest again so Crowley allows himself to be dragged to a staff break room that is far more packed than it has any right to be.

The moment the door opens, everyone turns to look, their eyes landing on Crowley seemingly all at once. And then, just like Michael had, they all fixate on Crowley and Aziraphale’s conjoined hands before a collective bought of grins breaks out across everyone’s faces. It’s strange to watch the way the realization seems to ripple around the room like a wave, dragging everyone underneath. 

“Are you actually—“ Someone starts to say.

Aziraphale huffs next to Crowley and cuts in before anymore can be said, “My husband, yes, he is.”

“I need to hear  _ him _ say it.” Whoever they are asserts and Crowley decides immediately that he doesn’t like them.

“You absolutely do not.” Crowley nearly growls, a moment of protectiveness washing over him. “Aziraphale has never given you a reason to think he’d lie to you.”

“He didn’t tell us about you for  _ years _ .”

“Which isn’t a  _ lie _ .” Crowley points out, but he feels Aziraphale going very, very still next to him and has the distinctive feeling that he has messed up somehow, even if he can’t put words to how. “But since you seem so keen on ignoring what he says, yes, I am his husband. And yes, he kept it secret for years because I asked him to. Happy now?”

There is a stillness that spreads across the room and Crowley can feel his frustration simmering just under the surface. He had heard Aziraphale talk about his work for years and it had always been clear that he hadn’t been treated well here, but this was a level that Crowley hadn’t even been able to imagine. Not only to think that they would just flat out default to distrusting Aziraphale, but to think that they were entitled to any part of his life, that they felt  _ owed _ information on what he did in his free time just irritated Crowley in a way he couldn’t quite contain.

“Listen—“ One of them starts to say.

But Aziraphale is frowning that particular frown and Crowley’s patience is nonexistent. “It was nice to meet you all.” He grinds out, cutting off whoever had been trying to speak. He hadn’t been paying any attention to who, he didn’t care. “But like my  _ husband _ here said to Michael earlier, we’ve got important things to do and must be going.”

And just like that he’s steering Aziraphale out of the break room and marching out of the building, not even flinching when the cold air bites at his exposed skin immediately. He punishes the snow underneath him, stomping with far more ferocity than can be necessary but he needs to find some way to get his anger out before he says something stupid.

“Crowley—“

“You shouldn’t let them treat you like that, angel.” Crowley rounds on him, stopping in the middle of quad and staring at him with imploring eyes. “That right there? That was a right bit of shit. They have no reason to treat you like that and you shouldn’t stand for it.”

There’s still that pained look in Aziraphale’s face, that one that had started when Crowley had lashed out at his coworkers and Crowley thinks, again, that he has misstepped somehow. Maybe Aziraphale just doesn’t like him rocking the boat at work, maybe he worries that Crowley has created some drama that he will face the backlash of. It’s possible, although Crowley really doesn’t think that those gits would have the gall to say something to Aziraphale after that. But then again, he wouldn’t have expected them to have the nerve to be so outright rude in the first place so he supposes he could be wrong. Aziraphale certainly knows them better than he does. 

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.” There’s a choked quality to Aziraphale’s voice that sounds like he’s got a sob stuck somewhere in his throat and it makes Crowley’s heart wrench in his chest.

“Of course it matters.” He presses, his voice suddenly hushed as he grips Aziraphale gently by the upper arms. “How could it not matter? Angel, you’re incredible. You’re brilliant and you’re kind and you let people walk all over you but you  _ shouldn’t _ . You should  _ know _ how incredible you are.”

And it’s here, right on the tip of his tongue, that four letter word he’s been refusing to form all this time.

It burns a little, like it’s searing itself there.

He wants to say it, he aches to say it, to put them both out of their misery, to drag them down together.  _ I love you _ . He could say it, right now. He could tell Aziraphale just how much he loves him, how desperately he wishes Aziraphale could see how amazing he is, could understand the depth of what Crowley sees in him. 

“They’re not important.” Aziraphale whispers, his head hung.

Crowley feels the words in his chest, feels the emotions prying his ribs open in a desperate attempt to find  _ some  _ way out. He knew he needed to tell Aziraphale and he had been planning on doing it but he’d wanted to do it with some sort of tact. He wanted to do it in a way that didn’t burden Aziraphale, that didn’t demand anything other than simple understanding from him. He hadn’t been intending to do it half out of his mind, in the middle of the goddamn quad after his asshole coworkers had treated him so terribly.

But then again, when does anything in Crowley’s life go the way he’s planning it to?

He draws in a breath and tries to steady himself. “They’re not.” He agrees. “But you are. And angel, I—“

He pauses, hesitates.

Aziraphale looks up at him, blue eyes sadder than Crowley has ever seen them. He feels the words shrivel and die on his tongue.

“I’m terribly sorry, dear.” Aziraphale says in the silence that follows and Crowley feels each word like a dagger to his heart. There’s something in Aziraphale’s voice that he hasn’t heard before, something that feels too close to a goodbye. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling quite well. Would you mind taking me home?”

“Home?” Crowley echoes, because there’s something about the way Aziraphale says it that sounds hollow, it sounds as empty as Crowley is feeling. 

“To my flat, if you wouldn’t mind.” Aziraphale turns his back towards Crowley, his head dropping again and suddenly Crowley feels like he’s on the other side of some crater, a divide forming between them that he can’t patch. “I think I just need a night alone.”

“Angel, whatever I said, I’m sorry.” Crowley reaches for Aziraphale but he stops a moment before his hand comes in contact with Aziraphale’s shoulder, some invisible feeling freezing him in his spot. “I should’ve have been rude to them, I get that. I’ll send them an apology email or something if you want. Whatever you need—“

“I just need to be alone tonight, I think.”

And just like that, Crowley’s blood freezes to ice in his veins. He wracks his brain for something else to say, something to break the tension that’s slowly wrapping around his throat but nothing comes to mind. Aziraphale takes the first steps back in the direction of the Bentley and Crowley feels like he’s lost something profound, even if he can’t say what.

“Sure, angel.” He says, falling just a step behind Aziraphale and dragging his feet as if that will somehow delay this invisible, inevitable thing that seems to be hanging just ahead of them. “Whatever you want.”

* * *

Aziraphale knows that Crowley hadn’t meant anything harmful by it, that Crowley had been doing nothing by trying to defend him. He  _ knows _ that Crowley was just trying to keep up their lie, to fill in the gaps in their story to make it more believable, But something about the way Crowley had said  _ he’s never given you a reason to think he’d lie to you _ had punched Aziraphale straight in the gut and stolen all of the air right out of his lungs.

It was  _ true _ and that’s what makes it so abysmal.

This lie they’re telling, this little world they’ve allowed themselves to be swept up in, it’s not just the two of them. There are other people involved in their lie, other people who are caught up in the nuances of it, dragged down into the depths of it. In some cases, it’s harmless. Like Michael. Aziraphale doesn’t care whether Michael goes home thinking about it tonight, whether she tells her significant other that her mind had been blown by this. But other cases are bigger than that, worse, more involved. Beelzebub, for example, and the entirety of  _ Hellfire _ . 

The amount of outrage there will be if their secret is ever discovered is off the charts. The site would take a huge hit, it’s credibility ruined. It would be viewed as manipulative and dishonest. Not to imply that he’s a bigger name than he is, but Aziraphale might go so far as to say that the website would be  _ ruined _ if their secret were found out. Over half of the hits in the last month had been on their articles and the more they talked about their relationship in their Christmas tales, the more readership they gained. People were reading because they were invested in him, in Crowley, in  _ them _ , together. People were reading for the authors, not the articles, and having that taken away from them would be devastating and a breach of trust.

Because that’s what the relationship between a journalist and their reader was— one of  _ trust _ . And they were out here abusing the trust of thousands of people— maybe even millions— on a daily basis as if it were nothing. They were responding to comments together, writing articles together, making plans  _ together _ . They were deceiving people day after day, hour after hour, like it didn’t matter.

And it  _ did _ matter. Or it should.

Aziraphale had gotten so caught up in his own enjoyment of it, in his own fantasy about what this was that he had completely forgotten for a time that other people existed and that his actions had the ability to impact them. He’d been having so much fun spending late nights half awake next to Crowley on the couch, watching Crowley wake up over two cups of coffee in the morning, sharing a desk with him at work, close enough to bump elbows and share secret smiles at the things happening around them. He  _ loved _ those things, painfully so. But having those things at the expense of so many other people couldn’t possibly be worth it.

It has been a number of days since Aziraphale has last been in his own flat and it almost feels foreign to him now, less like home. Crowley’s flat is  _ home _ now. It’s the place he goes after a long day, the place that houses his favorite jumpers, the place guarding his books and keeping them safe. Crowley’s flat is where he feels comfortable now, where he finds himself able to unwind. There’s his favorite wine chilling in the fridge that they had been intending to open tonight to try and wash the memory of Gabriel out of their minds. There’s a charcuterie board in the fridge alongside the wine, a surprise Crowley had gotten him to pair with his favorite wine. Aziraphale’s heart aches for these things.

Because that’s  _ Crowley’s _ flat. Not  _ theirs _ .

It’s absurd, really, the way he has gotten so caught up in this. He’s read more than enough books to know how these things go, he should’ve recognized the signs. Honestly, how many novels has he read where two people have to pretend to be in a relationship? One— or both— of them always ends up catching real feelings. He was foolish and naive to believe that he could come out of this unscathed, that he would somehow be able to extricate himself from Crowley without having it feel like he’s tearing his own heart in half in the process. 

It’s not even that he thinks Crowley doesn’t feel the same— Crowley could’ve stopped their game of house any time he wanted, could’ve drawn some clear line. He could’ve set up boundaries, pushed Aziraphale away in the middle of the night, only kissed him when people could see. But he didn’t do those things and that made it worse. That made it so much worse, Aziraphale felt like crying.

He had meant it when he told Crowley that he didn’t want to break his heart— of course he didn’t want to break the most beautiful heart he had ever seen. He would never want to hurt Crowley, would tear down anyone who ever attempted to hurt Crowley. Crowley was a being far too good for this world, no matter how much he pretended to be something other than that.

But Aziraphale wasn’t a  _ liar _ .

Crowley had said it himself.

So far, Aziraphale had been ignoring these two things and the way they contradicted inside of himself. He’d been pretending that he could have this beautiful thing that they had created without undermining everything he stood for as a person. He had been acting as if weren’t harming anyone, as if the turmoil that this created was only inside himself. He had been acting like he had  _ time _ . But today had made it abundantly clear that none of these things were true. He  _ can’t _ have this life they’ve created together and also consider himself an honest person. He  _ can’t _ pretend that he isn’t harming Beelzebub, Gabriel, their coworkers, their fans,  _ Crowley _ . He  _ can’t _ act like he has time when each new day drags him further and further from the person he has always been, further and further from the integrity he has built his entire career upon.

His flat feels too empty, too open, too judging. His flat feels like it’s missing something.

_ He _ feels like he’s missing something.

He  _ is _ missing something— something with long red hair and a sharp jawline, something with dark glasses and witty remarks, something he has grown to love with every corner of his shadowed heart.

Oh, bugger, this is so much more of a mess than he had ever dreamed it could possibly become.

When he had agreed all those weeks ago to lie to Beelzebub to help Crowley save face, he had done it solely because he felt partially responsible for what had happened. He had been intending to lie for the length of one conversation—  _ that _ was the kind of lie Aziraphale could tell without undermining his integrity. But it had gotten out of hand far quicker than he had ever imagined it could and suddenly he found himself with the most impossible choice he had ever had to make: love or everything else he’d ever stood for.

It sounded so dramatic, he tried to tell himself. Surely loving Crowley wasn’t forfeiting  _ everything _ he had ever had previous to this, but that’s how it felt. If he didn’t have his honesty, if he didn’t have the trust of his readers, what did he have? Certainly not his career and before Crowley that had been the  _ only _ thing in his life. If he didn’t have that, the only thing he had now was Crowley. And while that was beautiful and fulfilling, love wasn’t meant to make him  _ choose _ . It was never supposed to be love  _ or _ . It was supposed to be love  _ and _ . And in this case, Aziraphale couldn’t find that  _ and _ . 

Aziraphale drops gracelessly into his armchair— the one that used to be his favorite but now is nowhere near as comfortable as the one he’s used to sitting in at Crowley’s. The realization just makes his heart drop to his feet. He knows that he needs to do something, he needs to make some sort of decision, but he can’t bring himself to do it. Both of these things are equally important to him and he isn’t sure how he’s supposed to pick only one. A voice in the back of his head whispers to him that he doesn’t have to, that he can pick Crowley and his job at  _ Hellfire _ , that he can just keep this life that he has now. He doesn’t  _ have _ to give up anything if he doesn’t want to, the only person who will ever know is Crowley. And Anathema, but she would never say anything.

And that sounds lovely— it sounds so lovely it makes Aziraphale ache from the inside out, makes his heart thrum painfully as it longs for that. But he knows that he can’t actually have that. He wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, wouldn’t be able to keep lying to everyone. He would have to stop meeting fans because he would feel too guilty, and that was something he never wanted to do, something he never wanted to give up. That would be a cloud blocking the sun of this beautiful life he was trying to live, it would be a damper to every day, a wet blanket wrapped around every interaction he had, That guilt, that knowledge that it was all some elaborate lie would prevent him from living that life that he so desperately wanted.

The right thing to do would be to end it, to make a clean separation like they had been planning since the beginning. The best way would be to cut the ties between them cleanly and with a certain finality. And then he would retreat to nurse his own shattered heart back to health, to pick up the pieces of his life and try to turn the mosaic into something slightly resembling the future he had always wanted. It was the right thing to do.

But he couldn’t bear to give up Crowley. He couldn’t possibly live with the idea that Crowley might someday move on and love someone else, that some other person would get to see the beautiful way his eyelashes fanned out across his cheekbones while he slept, to know the silky texture of his beautiful hair through their fingers. He couldn’t bear the idea of someone else loving Crowley because they wouldn’t do it right, they wouldn’t love him the way Aziraphale did. 

And it was selfish, it was so unbearably and stupidly selfish. But it was that selfishness that had gotten them this far in the first place. It was that selfishness that had led him to accepting a permanent position at  _ Hellfire _ , that selfishness that had him pinning Crowley against doors, couches, the bed. It was that selfishness that wrapped his heart in barbed wire at just the  _ thought _ of not having Crowley in his life anymore.

He needed to do something, that was clear. But  _ god _ , he desperately hoped he could find something that didn’t involve him losing Crowley. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Crowley cracked. Because it was always Crowley who cracked, it was always Crowley who cracked, who reached out, who bridged the gap. It was Crowley who met Aziraphale in the middle. Or not even the middle. He met Aziraphale wherever he was at, even if that meant that he had to go ninety-eight percent of the way. 
> 
> “Angel?”
> 
> The sound of Crowley’s voice, the rawness of it, the jagged edges that implies that he tore that single word from the depths of his heart, that he was bearing a part of his soul with just two syllables was the thing to push Aziraphale over the edge.
> 
> It almost felt like hysteria, the way it overcame him. It started in the depths of his stomach and clawed its way up his throat, choking the words out of him. He could feel it in his fingertips, in his toes. “This has to end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Because I dropped your hand while dancing  
>  Left you out there standing  
> Crestfallen on the landing  
> Champagne Problems_

The weekend comes and Crowley doesn’t really know what to do with himself. He hasn’t had a weekend completely alone in a long time. Sure, he and Aziraphale have gone their separate ways for part of the weekends in recent memory, but never for the entire thing. And they’re usually in some sort of contact.

Crowley thinks he could go down and bother Anathema— it’s been too long since he’s properly given her a hard time and someone needed to do ti every once in awhile, just to keep her on her toes. She would be glad to see him, too. She’d been texting him on and off the last few weeks, trying to keep up on the mess that was his life and begging him to come in and tell her in person because it was all too hard to convey through messages. So he _could_ go down and visit Anathema, but he finds that he really doesn’t want to.

It’s nothing against Anathema, but he knows she’s going to ask questions and right now, he doesn’t think he can answer questions without feeling like he’s splintering apart at the seams. When he had dropped Aziraphale back off at his own flat two nights ago, he had barely even said goodbye before he’d meandered into his building, shoulders slumped. It was the worst Crowley had ever seen him look and he wanted so desperately to reach out to him, to pull him back into the Bentley, to take him _home_ and wrap him up in blankets, distracting him from whatever was worrying him. He couldn’t do that though, because Crowley knew— he could _feel_ it, that sort of gut truth that was unmistakable and unshakeable— that whatever was worrying Aziraphale was related to him. He _knew_ that being around Aziraphale right now would somehow make it worse, even if he didn’t know _what_ it was or how he had caused it.

It was clear in the way that Aziraphale hadn’t looked at him on the drive home, clear in the way he hadn’t kissed him goodbye. Those were things Crowley had come to expect, things he was _used_ to having, even though he shouldn’t be, and the lack of them seemed to suffocate him entirely. It was like some fundamental piece had been taken away from him, like a bit of the life he was living was crumbling beneath his feet, all from a few simple changes.

And it terrified him, honestly.

Because Anathema had been right, he was afraid to put roots down and to get attached less he have another falling out and have to move on again. He was afraid to get closer to people, to give them the power to burn and scorn him the way his old research partner had. He was _afraid_ to trust people because he’d had his trust broken enough times in the past. He was antagonistic, difficult to work with, sarcastic. He was all these things just to keep people at bay, to keep what little things he cherished safe so they weren’t taken from him, too.

And then Aziraphale had showed up and Crowley had gotten fucking attached. He’d created a life, planted roots— hell he’d even started to _bloom_. He had let down the walls he had spent so many years fortifying, had given Aziraphale a key to the depths of his heart and Aziraphale— he hadn’t walked away, hadn’t turned a blind eye, hadn’t been troubled by what he’d found. At least, Crowley had thought that was the case until two days ago, until Aziraphale went back to his own flat and promptly left Crowley with nothing but radio silence for two days. Crowley had _thought_ that Aziraphale had accepted the entirety of whatever he’d found on the other side of the rubble that was Crowley’s heart, but he was starting to think he’d been wrong.

He was starting to think that this really all had been just some arrangement.

Even though he _knew_ that wasn’t true, that couldn’t be true. There was too much tenderness in the way Aziraphale stroked his hair when he was just on the precipice between wakefulness and sleep, there were too many emotions hidden just behind his lips when he kissed Crowley. Crowley couldn’t, wouldn’t believe that this had really just been some business arrangement to Aziraphale all this time. It would hurt too much.

Having his old life taken away from him and left in shambles had been hard, but he had overcome it and somehow managed to scrape by, he had started a new life and built himself back up. But if these last two months with Aziraphale hadn’t been even a little bit genuine, if it hadn’t had a single thread of true emotion holding it together, Crowley wasn’t going to be able to survive. He couldn’t have this taken away from him and piece himself back together in the wake of it, he couldn’t put those pieces of his heart back together because it would be crumbled to dust at that point, and dust wasn’t something he knew how to reassemble.

So, no, he did’t want to go see Anathema because she was going to force him to put all of those things into words, and he wasn’t ready for that. Even more so, he wasn’t ready for the way she would look at him as he choked his way through some sentences, his voice tight as he tried to cling desperately to that thin facade that Anathema had always been able to see through. He could just picture it and that alone was enough to force him to draw his covers over his head and pray desperately for his mattress to swallow him whole— her eyebrows drawn together, the slight downturn at the corner of her mouth as she chewed on the other side to try and stop herself from saying whatever it was that she was thinking.

Because that was the other thing about Anathema— somehow, in every circumstance, she was an optimist. She believed things would always work out in the end, that things would fall into the place they were meant to be. She would give Crowley some bullshit speech about how he and Aziraphale could work whatever this was out, how he was probably reading too much into it because Aziraphale hadn’t _said_ any of these things, Crowley had just inferred them through various different interactions. She would tell him that he can’t trust his gut because his gut loves to sabotage him— it does— and that it’s unfair of him to put words in Aziraphale’s mouth.

But that’s the _thing_ — he’s _not_ putting words in Aziraphale’s mouth. Okay he _is_ , but he _isn’t_. Just because Aziraphale hasn’t outright said these things doesn’t mean he hasn’t expressed them in some way and Crowley has become a master at reading between Aziraphale’s line. Half of their relationship at this point is understanding each other without words. For two people who write for a living, it turns out they’re shit at using their words. But that’s okay— sort of, not really, but it just has to be because that’s how they _are_ — because they’ve learned to understand each other in other ways, They’ve learned to piece together the gaps, to see what the other is saying before they say it— or so they don’t have to.

So Crowley knows that he’s right, even if Aziraphale hasn’t said it. He knows the signs that are being presented to him and he knows he’s reading them correctly. He had misstepped at the University two days ago and he doesn’t know exactly when or exactly how to fix it and Aziraphale is not telling him _anything_. Crowley had sent him a message yesterday— just something casual to check in— and Aziraphale hadn’t even sent a response. If he hadn’t seen Aziraphale showing up in the never-ending stream of bloody emails they were constantly included in, he would start to worry that something had happened to him.

But Aziraphale _was_ in those emails, he was replying to them and acknowledging the parts of them that involved him and Crowley. Crowley couldn’t be assed to read those parts, to know what the fuck he was supposed to be doing currently. He couldn’t be assed to do anything other than stare at Aziraphale’s words on the screen and wonder why he could reply to everyone else, but he couldn’t reply to Crowley.

* * *

Aziraphale tried to tell himself that it wasn’t cowardice, but he knew that wasn’t true.

He was a master at deceiving himself, he’d been doing it for years, and even _he_ couldn’t believe that what he was doing was anything other than cowardice.

For years he had lied to himself about his job, told himself that he was happy, that he was find writing these analyses, even if he didn’t particularly care about them. He told himself that he didn’t miss teaching— what was there to miss, really? It was tests and grading, stack of paperwork after stack of paperwork, a never-ending string of questions from his students. There wasn’t anything to miss! That’s what he told himself, but now that his eyes were being opened, he knew it wasn’t true. He missed the students, he missed connecting with them and watching the way they interacted with literature. He missed seeing how they found a place for themselves amongst the pages of books. He missed the debates, too, the way the students would get so enthralled, so caught up in what they were reading that they couldn’t stop. He missed hearing their different views, seeing how their experience with the world shaped their experience with literature. Interacting with the students was worth every stack of paperwork, every late night inputting grades and cursing his computer under his breath because the technology refused to work with him, no matter how kind he tried to be with it.

He missed teaching, and he couldn’t seem to shove that fact back down into the shadows of his heart, his mind. Crowley had opened something in him, had given him permission he hadn’t known he needed to address his feelings and to admit that he was unhappy and now that he had started to do that, he couldn’t stop.

He hated his job at the University now, he _hated_ writing literature analyses. Truth be told, it had taken all of the enjoyment of reading away from him. What once used to be his favorite pastime was now a chore to him, something he couldn’t stop doing, even when he wasn’t under any obligation. He couldn’t pick up a book and read it for pleasure because he found himself analyzing each word, picking it apart and trying to decide how it could be done better. It was terrible and unfair— the whole world of literature analyses was like that, though. It was criticism when criticism was not wanted, it was _one_ opinion that was held as law, treated as if it were fact when it wasn’t.

Just because he may not have liked the word choice in a particular novel didn’t mean that everyone had to dislike that word choice, and just because he thought the pace moved too slowly doesn’t mean that other people don't savor the pace, don't find it easy to lose themselves in it, to let the story absorb them so they felt like they were living it themselves.

In short, everything he did was a cold-hearted farce and he hated it.

He wanted to instill a love of reading into people, he wanted to teach the magic that could be found between covers of a book. He wanted to help people get lost in a world, wrapped up in characters, he didn’t want to tear that apart piece by piece. He _hated_ his job, had hated it since the day he’d started doing it.

But somehow, somewhere along the way, Aziraphale had convinced himself that this was fine. He had readers, Gabriel was happy, whatever felt wrong must just be in his head. His peers referenced his work, praised it, held it as a sort of standard to look up to. Surely that was the kind of thing he should be aspiring to, the kind of thing he should consider a _success_. And yet every time he sat down at his keyboard, every time he flipped open his notebook or stroked fingers down he spine of a book, he found himself dreading what was going to come next.

It was a truth he had never admitted to anyone. He hadn’t even admitted it to Crowley— not out loud, at least— but Crowley had called him out on it early on, had pinned him to the spot right then and there, as if he could see straight through Aziraphale. And maybe Aziraphale really was transparent— nobody besides Crowley had ever bothered to look hard enough at him to tell. But there was something gentle in the way Crowley had said it, something that was kind instead of accusatory that told Aziraphale that this wasn’t just some truth he wore on his sleeve for the few people who bothered to look, this was Crowley really searching for some truth— and finding it.

And ever since Crowley had put that thought in his head, ever since Crowley had showed him that there was more to the world, Aziraphale hadn’t been able to go back to how things were. He had a new deadline from Gabriel, a new book he was supposed to be reviewing— a classic favorite that so many people had been asking him to review for months now— and he hadn’t yet touched the book. Every time he looked at it, he got this overwhelming feeling of dread, this sickness in the pit of his stomach that made him feel likee everything he was doing was wrong.

He’d told Crowley about it, once. And Crowley had done what he does best— he’d taken it in stride and responded to it without asking Aziraphale to explain too much. He was excellent at that, Aziraphale had learned. He was excellent at toeing the line, at knowing exactly when to stop pushing because any more would make Aziraphale shut down. And when Aziraphale had expressed how much he hated his job, Crowley had shrugged like it was easy and told him to quit. Come work for _Hellfire_ full time, he’d said, Beelzebub would be thrilled.

It was far more tempting than Aziraphale had ever thought it would be.

But it still wasn’t where his heart lied.

Not to mention that change like that wasn’t easy for Aziraphale to swallow. He didn’t like when things shifted like that, when the solid routine he had developed for himself was interrupted.

Which was why Crowley had been an entire surprise to him. Because Crowley was, by definition, the biggest disruption Aziraphale had ever faced. Crowley had waltzed in with that infuriatingly alluring swagger of his and just started kicking down doors and picking apart the lies that Aziraphale had been weaving year after year. And Aziraphale had just… let him. He’d just watched as Crowley rifled through everything and disrupted his routines, picked apart his protective armor of dishonesty and he’d felt—

He’d felt _relieved_.

Maybe it was because Crowley was the first person to really look for Aziraphale buried underneath all the rigid structure and impossible deadlines. Maybe it was because Crowley was the first person to refuse to take his lies, tossing them out before Aziraphale can even get them all the way off his tongue. Maybe it’s because Crowley is the first person to _listen_ and actually _hear_ what Aziraphale was saying, to _understand_ his feelings and his concerns. Everyone else— Gabriel especially, and he was unfortunately the bulk of Aziraphale’s social interactions before Crowley— just took whatever words Aziraphale said and accepted them at face value, without bothering to read into to tone or context. If he said he was fine with something, even if everything else suggested that he was only saying it out of a sense of duty o ra fear of punishment, they clapped him on the shoulder, praised his cooperativeness and just piled more things on his plate. Nobody but Crowley bothered to really hear his words and piece them together with everything else to really grasp what it was that Aziraphale wanted, or was feeling.

Aziraphale groans and sits up in bed. Normally he would never stay in bed this late— not on his own, anyways. He may have spent a few mornings of the last couple of weekends pillowed in bed with Crowley, taking a lazy start to their mornings. But now he doesn’t have Crowley, doesn’t have anything but the empty echo of his flat as he pads into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea.

This is getting to the point that it’s inexcusable. He has to see Crowley tomorrow for work at the very least, and he can’t let them go into it like this— with this weird unspoken thing hanging over then. Poor Crowley likely has no idea what it is that’s even bothering Aziraphale, has no idea the difficult decision that Aziraphale Is contemplating.

Poor Crowley, he’ll never see any of it coming.

Because that’s Crowley— trusting and open. With Aziraphale, at least.

That’s just another person’s trust he feels like he’s taking advantage of and it makes him want to crawl back into his bed and never get up. How he manages to be a forty-something-year-old man who cannot handle this sort of thing is beyond him, but he firmly tells himselff that he _must_ deal with this today, no matter how much he doesn’t want to.

* * *

Surprised is perhaps an understatement for how Crowley feels when his phone rings and he sees Aziraphale’s photo staring back at him. His heart had leapt to his throat as he’d answered, feeling like he did back in those first days when he hadn’t been sure if Aziraphale actually hated him for dragging him into this mess or not. He felt like he did back when he had been preparing for a verbal lashing every time he’d spoken to Aziraphale and he wasn’t particularly keen to go back to that.

Aziraphale hadn’t given him a verbal lashing, though. He’d apologized fo this silence and asked if he could possibly return to Crowley’s flat. Crowley had stumbled over his words, throwing out a far too emphatic _yes_ before Aziraphale had really even finished asking the question. He’d thrown the covers off of himself, dressed in a hurry and hopped in the Bentley before Aziraphale had a chance to change his mind. Crowley hoped desperately that he wouldn’t change his mind, his phone sitting in his lap just in case.

When he reached Aziraphale’s flat, he could see Aziraphale standing in the lobby, his ridiculous layers covering nearly everything but his eyes. Crowley’s heart swooped in his chest at just the thought.

“Angel,” Crowley greeted in his best attempt at casual as Aziraphale slid into the passenger seat of the car.

“Hello, darling.” Aziraphale smiles up at him and it’s warm, it reaches to his eyes, it looks relieved but it’s still not what it used to be. That crater that had formed between them two days ago is still there, Crowley can feel the gaping openness of it, the way it’s like a black hole trying to devour everything between them. “Thank you for coming to get me. I’m terribly sorry if it was any trouble for you.”

“None at all.” Crowley reassures him as he pulls away from the curb. “I was thinking for heading out for a spot of lunch anyways. Nothing enticing in the house.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale can’t stop the wistful edge from creeping into his voice, the one that comes when he talks about the things he loves. It loosens the vice around Crowley’s heart a little. “Lunch sounds lovely, I haven’t had any yet.”

“Where would you like to go then, angel?” Crowley knows Aziraphale’s favorite spots by now, but he also knows that Aziraphale loves to try new places, so he doesn’t dare presume where Aziraphale might pick. Instead he just holds steady on the road and waits until he’s given directions.

There’s a long moment of silence where he can feel Aziraphale looking at him, studying the side of his face, but whatever it is he’s thinking, he doesn’t say. He reaches up to tuck a stray piece of hair behind Crowley’s ear and mumbles the name of a restaurant Crowley know’s he’s been dying to try. Crowley catches his hand on its way back down and threads their fingers together, silently changing course and taking them to the restaurant.

* * *

Lunch isn’t the normal, lovely affair that Aziraphale has gotten used to over the past two months. It isn’t rolling his eyes as Crowley tries to hide his smile behind the rim of his wine glass after making a particularly uncouth joke. It’s not picking bites of food off of Crowley’s plate, Crowley swatting at his fork as if he cares even though they both know that he absolutely doesn’t. It’s not easy laughs and conspiratorial whispering, voices hushed as if they had some great secrets that they didn’t want anyone to overhear.

No, lunch is dreadful, actually. It’s quiet and terse, the unspoken words hanging in the air between them. It’s heavy with the sour taste of Aziraphale’s thoughts, with the anticipation of what may come next. Crowley doesn’t break the silence but Aziraphale doesn’t begrudge him for that— Crowley has no reason to break the silence, he wasn’t the one who had created it. Aziraphale was the one who created it, two days ago when he’d insisted on going home and then had promptly ignored Crowley, pretending that he didn’t see the texts that were, in fact, seared into his mind and haunting his every move.

It was on Aziraphale to break the silence, and he knew that. What he didn’t know was how to break it.

He didn’t know what words to say because the truth of the matter was that he hadn’t yet decided what to do, hadn’t figured out the best course. He had only reached out to Crowley because something had to give eventually and he missed Crowley terribly. He had missed him so much it had ached, an open gash in his heart that had felt as if it were bleeding loneliness into the rest of him. He had needed to see Crowley again. But something in him was still hesitant, something was fearful, telling him this was wrong, Something in him was screaming that he shouldn’t have done this, and he didn’t know how to address that.

It turned out that he didn’t know a lot of things, But he knew Crowley, would always know Crowley, had every inch of Crowley embedded into his soul, never to be let go of. He just didn’t know if that made things better or worse.

By the time they were done eating— by the time Aziraphale was done eating because Crowley hadn’t really done much more than push his food around on his plate idly, staring blankly at the tabletop— the silence had stretched so thin between them that Aziraphale didn’t think he could break it. At this point it felt fragile and he feared anything that shattered the silence might shatter one— or both— of them as well. So he didn’t say anything at all.

They exited the restaurant together, walking side by side and Aziraphale’s heart ached in his chest, thundering against his ribs with each step. His hands twitched where they were clasped behind him in a desperate desire to reach out for Crowley’s hand, to hold one of them delicately in his own, to pull it to his lips and press kisses to each individual knuckle in hopes that it might soothe some of the clear worries that were weighing down Crowley’s shoulders. But Crowley had his own hands tucked into his pockets and well out of reach from Aziraphale, his shoulders hunching as if he were trying to close himself off.

Aziraphale recognized the posture immediately— it was the same posture he had found staring back at him for the first four years that they’d known each other, it was the posture Crowley used when bearing the judgements lobbed against him, refusing to crack underneath them, even though Aziraphale now knew that they hurt him. So many of those judgements had been thrown his way courtesy of Aziraphale and yet he had still found it in himself to open up to Aziraphale, to show him the wounds he had acquired over the years, trusting Aziraphale not to hurt him any further.

And yet here he was, cutting Crowley to the bone with a silence that was sharp as a whip.

He needed to do something, he needed to say something, he couldn’t keep doing this to Crowley.

Aziraphale opened his mouth, tried to dredge up some words— any words at all, just something to start a conversation, something to end the agony of this cold silence, but the voice that followed wasn’t his own.

“Excuse me.” Aziraphale whipped his head around to find a young woman staring back at them. She couldn’t be much older than Anathema and she looked terribly kind, her cheeks already a little pink before she even asked her question. “You’re Aziraphale Fell and Anthony Crowley, aren’t you?”

Crowley glanced sidelong at Aziraphale who felt like his jaw was likely on the sidewalk below their feet. When Aziraphale made no move to pick it up, Crowley plastered on a smile and turned back to the young lady. “We are.”

“I—” She paused, glanced at Aziraphale who didn’t seem to be able to pull himself back together, the turmoil of emotions in his stomach so strong that he thought it might just pull him under right here and now, that he might subject this poor woman to whatever was about to happen. “I’m a huge fan of your writing and of— of you both in general. I was just wondering if you’d be willing to take a picture with me?”

The world was cracking underneath Aziraphale’s feet, splintering apart, gaping open wide and threatening to swallow him whole. He wished it would.

“Of course,” Crowley answers smoothly, finally withdrawing one of his hands from his pocket and using it to reach out and drag Aziraphale closer to his side. “We’d love to. Right, angel?”

Aziraphale turned wild eyes on Crowley, the world seeming to blur around them. He could barely hear the sound of Crowley’s voice over the alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind. Everything was wrong. 

But this poor woman didn’t deserve to be subjected to any of the meltdown that was imminent, so Aziraphale pulled himself back together as much as he possibly could, forcing words out of his throat no matter how painfully they grated on his way. “Absolutely!”

The young lady positively beamed up at them, her joy so pure that it was nearly blinding as she stepped up to nestle herself in between the two of them. Crowley threw an arm around the woman, his hand brushing against Aziraphale’s arm and it was enough to open up an ache inside of Aziraphale so big that it could never be closed again.

He’s not sure if he smiles for the photo, he certainly doesn’t feel like smiling, But the young lady seems happy, thanking them both profusely before she leaves, her own smile so big it could split her face open. Once she’s gone, it’s like the world freezes around them. Aziraphale knows he’s staring blankly at the spot she had just vacated, he knows that Crowley is staring at him with growing alarm, but he can’t seem to do anything, can’t get the rushing in his ears to quiet down enough to even have a coherent thought.

She had recognized them.

Out in public, in the middle of their day.

She knew who they were.

The bone chilling realization settles in and Aziraphale thinks that the world will never be on its proper axis again. He had known that they were lying to more than just Beelzebub and Gabriel, more than just their coworkers. He had known that and it had been hard enough to deal with. But being forced to confront it like this, seeing the face of this pure stranger they had lied to, watching the way their deception had affected her— Aziraphale couldn’t live with that. 

He glanced up and could still faintly hear her as she disappeared down the sidewalk, “No, no, It was them! They took a picture with me! Yeah— yeah I just ran into them on the street!”

His blood turned to ice in his veins.

Aziraphale turned to Crowley— beautiful Crowley who had his glasses pushed up into his hair, his golden eyes concerned. He was holding his breath, Aziraphale could tell by the lines of tension in his body, by the way his chest wasn’t moving— no part of him was moving. It was like he, too, was frozen, staring at Aziraphale, the question neither of them wanted an answer to poised on the tip of his tongue.

Finally, Crowley cracked. Because it was always Crowley who cracked, it was always Crowley who cracked, who reached out, who bridged the gap. It was Crowley who met Aziraphale in the middle. Or not even the middle. He met Aziraphale wherever he was at, even if that meant that he had to go ninety-eight percent of the way. 

“Angel?”

The sound of Crowley’s voice, the rawness of it, the jagged edges that implies that he tore that single word from the depths of his heart, that he was bearing a part of his soul with just two syllables was the thing to push Aziraphale over the edge.

It almost felt like hysteria, the way it overcame him. It started in the depths of his stomach and clawed its way up his throat, choking the words out of him. He could feel it in his fingertips, in his toes. “This has to end.”

If Aziraphale thought Crowley had been still before, it was nothing compared to the stillness he had now, as if every single muscle in his body stopped moving. “What?”

“This— this lie, Crowley! It has to end!” Aziraphale burst out, his voice rising higher than he intended it to. 

The volume of it seems to be the least of Crowley’s concerns, though, Aziraphale watches as the words bite at his skin, needle their way underneath. He watches Crowley’s face shift through a series of different emotions, unsure which one to settle on. “What do you mean by _end_?”

“What are we going to do?” Aziraphale paces a few steps away before returning to Crowley, his hands worrying each other in front of him, as if the motion along could deal with his anxieties. “Are we going to keep lying forever? Keep taking photos with strangers on the street? Are we going to keep pretending to be madly in love when we’re—“

Crowley stares him down, his gaze as unblinking as a snake. The unspoken word hangs between them, heavy and taunting and Aziraphale prays that Crowley won’t make him say it, won’t Make him go through with this. He’s not so lucky. “When we’re?”

Aziraphale takes a deep breath, feels it stutter out of him, like it’s trying to catch itself before he can say it, like it’s trying to stay inside, to prevent what’s going to happen. “When we’re not.”

In truth, he’s not sure what he expects Crowley’s reaction to be. If pressed, he couldn’t say. But he’s certain that he wouldn’t have imagined Crowley flinching away from him, his beautiful face shuttering closed, his eyes hardening. He watches as Crowley lifts a hand towards his sunglasses, as if reflexively trying to hide behind them. The hand stops part way, as if Crowley realizes that Aziraphale sees what he’s doing, and instead it threads into his hair and tucks it behind his ear. Aziraphale recognizes the aborted motion for what it was but he doesn’t say anything.

“We’re not.” Crowley echoes, hollow, shallow, strained. “We’re—“

“Well, we _aren’t_ , are we?” Aziraphale tries to reason.

“Yes!” Crowley cries at once, throwing his hands in the air. “We are! Or at least _I_ am.”

“You—?”

Crowley scrubs a hand across his face, tangling it into the loose strands of hair that have started to fall around his face, His cheeks are red and Aziraphale doesn’t know if it’s from the cold winter air or the confession that Aziraphale assumes he didn’t mean.

It’s only a few seconds before Crowley replies, but those seconds seem to stretch on for eternities. Aziraphale feels like he lives entire lifetimes in the short span of time before Crowley answers. In every one of those lifetimes, he loves Crowley again.

“Fuck. _Fuck_. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. But yeah.” Crowley isn’t looking at him now and Aziraphale’s heart swells with the realization that Crowley still hasn’t put his sunglasses on. “I am. It hasn’t just been playing house, angel, It’s been—“ he sighs, stops his sentence, shoves his hands deep in his pockets. His shoulders hunch and it cuts Aziraphale to the core. “It’s been more than that, alright? It’s been real.”

“Crowley…” Aziraphale reaches for him, ghosts his fingers over the sharp angle of Crowley’s shoulder, feels the tension there, vibrating underneath his fingertips.

“Tell me you don’t feel the same.” Crowley appears to be carving the words out of his chest, etching them into existence with his very bones, pouring every ounce of who he is into each word that sucks the breath straight out of Aziraphale’s lungs.

“What?”

“Tell me you don’t feel the same.” Crowley pleads and Aziraphale isn’t sure what exactly he’s pleading for but he feels his own heart bleeding in response. “Or don’t end it.”

“It’s not—“ His hand finds solid purchase on Crowley’s shoulder, his fingers gripping, digging into the soft skin beneath them. He holds tightly to Crowley, even as he’s pushing him away, “It’s not that simple.”

“The fuck it’s not.” Crowley’s words lash against Aziraphale and he knows he deserves them, but it doesn’t stop them from hurting. “Either you feel the same and we figure this out or you don’t and—“ he shakes his head, dropping his eyes. A few stray pieces of hair fall into his face and Aziraphale longs so desperately to tuck them safely away so he can once again see those beautiful eyes that he’s so used to staring into.

He’s seen those eyes in all lights now, all times of day. He’s seen them blinking sleepily back at him, soft around the edges as he comes back to life. He’s seen them sharp and bright, filled with mirth as he does something new to cause trouble. He’s seen them as they drift far away in thought, something else gripping him for the time being. Never before has he seen them like this, though— cold and fearful, guarded and closed off.

Aziraphale thinks he might have seen them like this, in the beginning, if he had been gifted the sight of Crowley’s eyes unguarded.

That thought nearly breaks him.

“Too many people are tangled up in this mess, darling,” Aziraphale pulls his hand back when Crowley flinches again, the use of the familiar nickname bringing a grimace to his face instead of the usual fond smile that Crowley no doubt thinks he can’t see. “We can’t— we _can’t_ keep lying. We have to put an end to it.” Crowley doesn’t respond right away, his wide eyes boring into Aziraphale and it only spurs him on further, He needs Crowley to _understand_. “We’re going to hurt too many people! We’ve already betrayed the trust of too many people, Crowley.”

“I don’t care about the trust of other people.” Crowley hisses and he glances around, reminding Aziraphale that they’re really having it out on a sidewalk right now, for anyone to witness. They should move this somewhere else but Aziraphale can’t bear to go anywhere with him right now, can’t bear the weight of the thoughts he’s been struggling against for days. “I care about _you_.”

“But you _should_.” Aziraphale protests, ignoring the latter part of Crowley’s statement lest he lose the last bit of his nerve. “You have a large audience and you have a responsibility to them.”

“Then I’ll quit.”

“You—“ Aziraphale sighs, feels his shoulders slump.This is not going at all how he expected it to go. Not that he really expected it to go any particular way since he hadn’t been intending to have this conversation at all. But above all else, he knows this is the right choice. He can feel it in his gut, in the white noise buzzing in his ears. It’s the right choice, because he won’t be able to sleep at night knowing that he’s given all these people hope that’s actually hollow on the inside. “You can’t just quit, that’s far too dramatic.”

Crowley throws his arms out to the side in a gesture that Aziraphale understands and despite everything that’s happening, despite the cracks forming throughout his heart, threatening to connect and crumble it completely, he feels a moment of wry amusement at Crowley, Because he _is_ dramatic, he’s always _been_ dramatic and he knows it. And Aziraphale, oh. This is the worst thing he’s ever had to do.

“I won’t let you quit your job for me.” Aziraphale says instead, turning his head away. This needs to end, he can’t drag this out . His resolve will waver more and more with each passing second, his heart softening to the man before him that it knows so well.

“Then, what?” Crowley presses and he steps right up to Azirpahale, He’s so close that Aziraphale could reach out and touch him, could draw him in and kiss him. He’d so like to. But he can’t, he knows he can’t. His mind knows he absolutely can’t, even if his heart is straining for exactly that. “What do we do? Because you still haven’t said—“

“And I’m not going to say I don’t feel the same!” Aziraphale whispers, a quiet confession in the minuscule space between them, a bearing of his heart, a secret he wasn’t sure he was ever going to let see the light of day.“I’m not going to _lie_ to you, Crowley, But I’m not going to keep lying to everyone else, either. I can’t— I _won’t_.”

The edges of Crowley’s eyes soften, his mouth looks like it’s considering a smile at Aziraphale’s confession. And oh, Aziraphale wishes so badly that he could see what Crowley would look like if he let himself believe the confession. He wishes he could see the smile break out across Crowley’s face, the delight lighting up his eyes. He wishes Crowley would laugh warmly before pulling him in for a kiss, the delight he feels too much to be contained, overflowing from everything he does, everything he says, Aziraphale wishes the confession could be what a confession is meant to be, but instead it’s just another knife in his arsenal, another painful thing he knows he’s carving into Crowley’s gentle hard— a brand to never be forgotten, to never give him peace.

“So—?”

Aziraphale squares his shoulders, holds firm. “So we end this. We end it publicly, we make it clear that there’s nothing here. And then, when it fades away, when our lie is _gone_ — if there’s something still here, we can address it then.”

“If—?” Crowley steps back like he’s been wounded, the ghost of a smile that had been hovering around his lips falling into a frown, the weight of it shattering Aziraphale completely. “ _If_ there’s something still here?”

If only Crowley hadn’t pressed, Aziraphale thinks as he readies himself for what has to be said. If only Crowley had just accepted it, had gotten mad and stormed off. If only Crowley had just turned his back and gone off to lick his own wounds. “How do we know that any of this is real? It could be circumstance! We were forced to play a role and play that role we did. Maybe we just… got caught up in it. Maybe it was just a— a side effect of everything else.”

If jaws could actually hit the ground, Aziraphale thinks Crowley’s would. “A _side effect_? I tell you that I’m in love with you and you say it’s just a _side effect_? That I don’t know—“ Crowley yanks his sunglasses out of his hair so that he can run his hands through it in frustration, stuffing his glasses into his jacket pocket haphazardly. Aziraphale watches all of the jerky motions, the pain written into every single one of them, and Aziraphale wants so desperately to soothe them. But he can’t soothe them, he can’t soothe Crowley, because he’s the one causing the problem in the first place. “You really think I don’t know what it would feel like to be in love, Aziraphale? That I’m some bloody school girl who gets caught up spending too much time around someone? You really think that of me?”

And really, what is Aziraphale supposed to say? That he doesn’t think that of Crowley at all? That he, in fact, thinks Crowley is incredibly brilliant in every possible aspect? That wouldn’t help the situation much, he doesn’t think. He could reiterate that he loves Crowley, too, and that he _knows_ he loves Crowley, that he would always love Crowley if he had ever bothered to get to know him, lie or not. He could tell Crowley that his love comes from the depths of who he is and that he loves Crowley for everything he is— the good, the bad and the dramatic— but he’s certain that will make things worse.

Everything will make things worse. Because everything will continue to push Crowley away. And the only thing worse than this moment right now is every moment that comes after where Crowley gets further and further away until eventually he’s out of Aziraphale’s reach completely.

* * *

“You didn’t—“ Aziraphale can’t seem bring himself to say the words but Crowley knows what he’s meant to finish that sentence with, knows where this question is going even before it’s out of his mouth. “Before we made this _arrangement_ , did you? You can’t tell me it isn’t _possible_.”

Crowley could absolutely tell him it isn’t possible. He could say that he had been attracted to Aziraphale since that very first day, four years ago. He could say that he fought it tooth and nail, that he tried to ignore and deny it. He could tell Aziraphale that falling in love with him had been as much of a choice as it had been natural. He chose to get to know more about Aziraphale with each passing day, he chose to pull him close, to taste the way he kissed. He chose to learn everything he could about Aziraphale, to try and get into the inner-workings of his mind, even though he knew that choice would only make him fall more in love.

He couldn’t get into Aziraphale’s mind now, though, and he desperately wanted to.

He needed to understand what Aziraphale was thinking, needed to make him _see_. But he recognizes the firm set to Aziraphale’s jaw, the way his shoulders are squared in an attempt to fend off whatever weaknesses he was struggling under. This was the Aziraphale that refused to see another side of things, the one that had already made up his mind and was going to do whatever he thought was right, regardless of what anyone else— especially Crowley— had to say about it.

“Fine, let’s say I see your side.” Crowley doesn’t, not even a little bit. As far as he can figure out there was just a mutual love confession but instead of being in the Bentley, speeding towards one of their flats, they were standing on an open sidewalk arguing about how they couldn’t be together. There didn’t seem to _be_ a point here. “And we do it your way. We end it, we go our separate ways, all that jazz. And then it’s—“ Crowley tries not to choke on the words, tries not to spit them out with the bitter edge that’s just longing to show it’s face. “It’s _still there_. Then what? We get back together?”

“Well—“

“Because that doesn’t work, Aziraphale.” He hates using Aziraphale’s actual name, hates the taste of it on his tongue when he has to say it like this. He prefers to use angel, to let the unspoken emotions seep into those syllables, telling secrets between the lines. “You realize that, right? We’ll have to make up some story about how we got back together, about what happened. Everyone already thinks we’re together! We can’t take that back!”

“That’s exactly the problem!” Aziraphale’s outburst is almost unexpected. His blue eyes are wide as he fidgets with his hands. Crowley considers grabbing onto them to stop the nervous habit, but Crowley thinks that would be distinctly unwelcome at the current moment. “The problem is that we’re _lying_ to _everyone_. How many times must I say that?”

“I understand your problem. I don’t see how you plan to fix it. As long as we are together in any way, people are going to bring this lie up. It’s not something we can just _sweep under the rug_. It’s not going to just _go away_ no matter how nicely you ask it to. It’s here to bloody stay.”

And there it is, the moment Crowley knows he’s lost. He sees the way Aziraphale’s face shifts, sees the way it shuts down, the sadness as he bites the corner of his lip to stop it from wobbling.

“You’re right.” Aziraphale says and Crowley has never wanted to be wrong more in his entire life. “It won’t go away as long as we’re together. But it _has_ to go away, Crowley. I won’t be able to live with myself if I know I’m lying to everyone every day. That’s not who I _am_. It’s not what I _do_. Everything I’ve ever shared with my readers has been based on the truth. I can’t do this anymore. Even if we actually got together, everything up until now was a lie and a farce and that can’t be changed.”

“What are you saying?” Crowley doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to hear Aziraphale put it into words. But he has to. It’s the only way he’ll be able to let go— Aziraphale has to _ask_ him to do so.

“I’m saying—“ Crowley watches the way the breath rattles out of Aziraphale. He can feel how painful it is, can feel the mirroring burning ache in his own lungs. “That everything we have so far is built on lies. And if those lies won’t go away while we’re together then— then we can never be together.”

“That’s—“

“We _can’t_ , Crowley. I can’t keep lying for you. I never should’ve done it in the first place!” Aziraphale looks to be moments away from collapsing entirely and Crowley thinks he would be right there with him if he weren’t feeling so completely numb instead.

“For me? You were lying _for me_ this whole time?” Crowley echoes, disbelieving.

“Well— That’s not—“

“If you’re going to end it, fine, angel. End it. I’ll respect your wishes. But don’t pretend that this was all for me this entire time. If you’re going to end things, _own that_. Because if it were up to me—“

This is wrong. Everything is wrong and Crowley knows that. He feels unsettled, like the world is tilted slightly to the side. The last two days that Aziraphale had been ignoring him, had been hiding out on his own, Crowley had been worried. He had known something like this was coming but he hadn’t expected it to be an explosion, he hadn’t expected this life he’d created to blow up in his face and be ripped out from under his feet. He had thought that Aziraphale had his concerns and his reservations because he was Aziraphale and having concerns was the main thing he did. Crowley had expected to have a conversation now that the holidays were over, had expected to have to come up with a game plan of where to go from here. But he hadn’t expected where they were going to be _down_.

“Do you think I want to do this?” Aziraphale bites back and it surprises Crowley.

“Well nobody making you do it, so what the hell else am I supposed to believe?” Crowley takes a step back, startled.

The wind seems to be leaving Aziraphale’s sails, but he’s still got a little fight left in him. He reaches out and grabs Crowley by the shoulders again and the touch burns Crowley. It could very well be the last time he ever feels Aziraphale’s fingers pressing into his skin and the knowledge is so bittersweet it makes Crowley feel like he’s being ripped in half. “I told you I won’t lie to you and I won’t. I’ve loved these last few months and I love this life we created together. I love _you_ , Crowley, but this is all wrong. This isn’t one of the novels I’m meant to review. People don’t fall in love in two months!”

“We did!”

“You don’t know that! There’s too many lies mixed in here, it’s too hard to see the truth! We need space from this, distance. I need _time_ to sort it all out and figure out how to handle it.” There’s an imploring look in Aziraphale’s eyes, like he’s begging Crowley to understand.

Crowley doesn’t understand. He won’t. He won’t _let_ himself. But he won’t push Aziraphale either, won’t force him to do something he’s uncomfortable with. Integrity and ethics are the backbones of who Aziraphale is, Crowley understands that. It’s impossible to know Aziraphale and to _not_ know how important those things are to him, and Crowley has asked him to compromise them. He can sleep fine at night, but Aziraphale can’t, and Crowley would never wish that for him. Crowley would _never_ want to be the reason that Aziraphale feels uncomfortable or unsettled. He only wants to bring Aziraphale comfort and happiness and it’s painfully clear now that he isn’t doing that.

What’s that saying that Crowley hates? If you love something, let it go?

“Fine.” He tries not to sound like he’s two seconds away from collapsing, even though he absolutely is. He tries not to let Aziraphale know that his heart is on the ground, right between their feet, waiting for Aziraphale to step on it as he leaves. “Take all the space you need, angel. Whatever it is, you’ve got it. Just let me know one you decide how we’re breaking up.”

“Crowley—“

“But let’s make one thing clear.” Crowley steps away from Aziraphale, dislodging his hands. He tries not to feel like Aziraphale’s taking his soul with him as he puts the space between them, tries not to think about the fact that he probably just ended the last physical contact he’ll ever have with the man he’s painfully in love with. “Whatever you decide, _you_ broke up with _me_ after I told you I was in love with you. At least that way, all the emotions will be genuine.”

And then, before Aziraphale has a chance to say anything else, Crowley turns and stalks off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now that that's over with, this is probably the time to remind you all that there IS a happy ending, I swear it. 
> 
> This... hurts. And it's gonna hurt for a bit while they sort out this mess that they've turned it into. But they will get there, I swear!!!! You gotta love Az, though, just trying to do what he thinks is right. He's messing it up big time, but his heart is in the right place.
> 
> As everyone should know by now, both Bianca and Naro have my undying love and affection but they deserve even more than I could ever possibly offer after this chapter. I struggled really hard with trying to make it make sense and trying to build a solid argument underneath Aziraphale and they were there with me every step of the way to help me be sure it made sense and to make me feel confident enough to post it. Truly, my loves, you are the biggest gifts and I wouldn't be able to do this without you both. Thank you <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I—“ Anathema sees how much effort it takes for Aziraphale to suck in a deep breath and finish that sentence. “I told him that I feel the same.”
> 
> The world absolutely stops. Completely and utterly halts where it is in space, everything freezing around them.
> 
> “So, let me get this straight.” Anathema is suddenly sitting very upright, her spine stiff as a board as she repeats the information she’s been given as slowly as she possibly can. “He told you he was in love with you, you told him you feel the same, and now you two are… broken up?”
> 
> “Ah, that’s the short version of it, yes.”
> 
> “Well then give me the long version, Aziraphale.” Anathema cries. “Because that makes absolutely no sense.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Sleeping half the day  
>  Just for old time's sake  
> I won't ask you to wait  
> if you don't ask me to stay_

_ Called Beelzebub, told them we’re sick. Get your articles in on time and we don’t have to be in the office this week. Flu, if anyone asks. See you next week _ .

The text had come in three days ago. The night after Crowley had left Aziraphale standing on the sidewalk in the middle of the afternoon. The same night that Aziraphale had been forced to call a cab to take him home, been forced to walk into his apartment that was devoid of most of his necessary belongings, the same night Aziraphale had cracked his own heart in half and left it to bleed out there on the sidewalk. 

Crowley had sent him that text the very same night and Aziraphale hadn’t been able to bring himself to reply with anything more than a simple  _ okay _ just to acknowledge that he had gotten it and that he wasn’t planning on showing up at work the next day and blowing their whole cover. Just another lie to add to the pile.

He knows he should have said something more— in the text, outside the restaurant, in the last two months. He knows that there are so many words he should have said that he didn’t, words he should have explained better. He told Crowley he loved him and then left him with the decimated ruins of a heart that had already sustained too much damage, He told Crowley he loved him. And then he left him.

It was a relief, honestly, to not have to go into work for a week. To have a week away from Crowley, from the lie, from the prying eyes of their coworkers. It was a relief to have a moment to  _ breathe _ and sort out his feelings.

It was a relief— until it wasn’t. Until it reminded him that he was alone. It was a relief until he pulled two wine glasses down from the shelf by force of habit, until he threw the blanket out to his side as if there was a second body for him to cover. It was a relief until he realized how empty the space between his fingers was, how lonely his heart was without that second heart there nestled up against it, keeping it warm. 

He tried to hold onto the relief. Tried to cling to it like some life raft that would keep him afloat. It wouldn’t, and he already knew that, but it wasn’t going to stop him from trying desperately, hopelessly, selfishly. He needed something to cling to, some idea that could maybe help him believe that the smoke he was choking on wasn’t from the future with Crowley he had just burned down to the ground. If he squinted enough, the darkness of his future just looked like the shadows of his past, the same ones he’d been expertly avoiding for decades.

It didn’t  _ feel _ like the shadows of his past, though. It wasn’t the same familiar, cold embrace, the same icy tendrils wrapping around his heart if he dared to sit still for long enough. This was heavier, and it sat lower in his gut, dragging him down to the bottom of the ocean and he couldn’t even bring himself to struggle against it.

He had thought about calling Crowley so many times, had picked up the phone only to put it down again. He had thoughts about just showing up at Crowley’s place, kissing the questions off the tip of his tongue before he even got a chance to ask them, smoothing away every worry Crowley had with the press of his hands. 

These thoughts had been the only thing plaguing him for the three days he had spent alone in his flat that was suddenly three sizes too big. His laptop had been left amongst his things at Crowley’s flat and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask for it back, to message Crowley back in any significant way. So, he’d powered on his ancient desktop computer, the one he had used when he’d first become a professor and they’d started insisting that he put things like the syllabus and the homework assignments online. It was a hefty, bulky thing that was even slower than he was, and even that blasted thing made him think of Crowley. 

How could it not, really? When Crowley made so much fun of him for using a notebook and paper to write his notes, constantly jabbing at the idea that Aziraphale couldn’t handle modern technology, it was inevitable that an ancient piece of technology would bring him to the forefront of Aziraphale’s mind. Aziraphale could imagine at least three different jokes Crowley would make, could picture the exact tilt of his smile as he rolled his eyes behind his glasses, pretending that he was put out by whatever defense Aziraphale came up with. He could picture it perfectly, could even  _ hear _ the teasing in Crowley’s voice inside his head.

But then again, the truth was that it wasn’t hard to make him think of Crowley. It was so easy in fact, that Aziraphale found himself constantly thinking of Crowley. He could picture Crowley, shoulder jammed against the doorway as he waited for Aziraphale to finish putting on his coat, he could hear the echoes of Crowley’s quiet laughter in the morning as he slumped over a cup of coffee. Everywhere he turned, Crowley was there, seared into the DNA of this flat, into Aziraphale’s own DNA. 

He was starting to think that he had made a terrible mistake.

But he hadn’t, he knew that. As much as he missed Crowley like he would miss one of his own limbs, as much as the absence of Crowley was as much a tangible, physical thing as it was an emotional emptiness, he knew that he had done what he needed to do in order to find peace with his future. This would fade, he tried to tell himself over and over again. This will fade, he repeated to himself with each new thought of Crowley that cut him open like a knife.

This will fade. This will heal. Life will move on.

And that, perhaps, is the lie he believes the least.

It doesn’t feel possible for life to move on without Crowley. Crowley had burst in and shaken everything up, flipping Aziraphale’s world on its head and giving him a new perspective. Crowley had come and shoved Aziraphale out of the rut he had dug himself into. And now that he was gone, it felt like everything was stagnant. It had only been three deans as already Aziraphale felt like he was falling into a new, drab routine. He felt like everything that mattered had faded out around him and he was left with nothing but this hollowness, this desire for more— for things out of his reach. His world had screeched to a halt the moment that Crowley had turned his back and stalked away and Aziraphale was terribly, terribly afraid that it wouldn’t start moving on its own again.

He needed to get out of the house, he decided. He needed to stretch his legs, to breathe fresh air, to talk to another human. He needed to get out of these four walls that had become nothing but an echo chamber of his darkest thoughts, that taunted him and mocked him, that reminded him of all of the worst things he had ever done in his life.

He needed to talk to  _ someone _ , just to get the words off of his chest.

Maybe, he tells himself as he buttons his cast, the words will eat him up less if he gets them out into the open.

Maybe, he dares to hope fruitlessly as he locks the door to his flat behind him, he’ll be able to breathe for just a moment— a single  _ moment _ of peace. 

It’s perhaps more than he deserves, but right now one deep breath of clean air is all that he can think about, all that he dares to hope for. 

* * *

There’s a knock on the door.

Crowley doesn’t even bother to move. 

At least, the first time there had been a knock two days ago, he’d mustered up the energy to roll over and pretend he didn’t hear it. Of course, when the knocking had persisted, he’d finally gotten up to throw the door open, ready to tell off whoever had the audacity to interrupt his wallowing. The words had died on his tongue the moment he’d seen his sweet downstairs neighbor standing there, a pot of something clutched in her arms, She had all but forced her way into his flat then, insisting that he sit down so she could take care of him. He hadn’t asked at first how she’d known— he  _ still _ hadn’t asked how she had known, honestly— but there had been something in her eyes that had made it clear so he’d sat diligently at the table and allowed her to dish out the soup she had made for him, leaving the rest in the fridge. 

Now, two days later, he didn’t even bother to acknowledge her knocking on his door. She’d demanded a key from him on the first day, seemingly aware that he would lock her out at his first possible opportunity. He’d given it to her— he’d had the second key made for Aziraphale, but since  _ he _ no longer needed it… 

The door clicks open and he hears footsteps heading towards his bedroom, even over the sound of the rerun of Gilmore Girls he was currently trying to drown his pain in. 

“Margerie, honestly, I’m not going to die.” He grouses as she pushes the door to his bedroom open a little bit further and peers inside.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t know that based on the state of this place.” She replies, but there’s nothing judgmental or bitter about it.

At some point in the last three days— Crowley wasn’t sure exactly when because he had somehow slept both too much and too little since Aziraphale had left him— he had told her what had actually happened. Or, well, the bare bones of it. He’d told her that his husband had left him. He’d skirted around the bits about the marriage being fake but the feelings being real. He figured she didn’t really need to know that. Plus, he didn’t really want to  _ say _ that.

He also didn’t think he needed to. Not the part about the feelings being real, at least. It was pretty clear in the way he had collapsed in on himself the moment he had sat down, curling his legs up at impossible angles to be able to wrap his arm around them as if even he was running out of strength to hold himself together. 

Or maybe— he’d had the thought in one of this half-asleep deliriums the other night— maybe he had never been the one holding himself together. Maybe that had always been Aziraphale. Maybe Crowley had been a broken shell of a man wandering aimlessly through life when he’d met Aziraphale. Maybe everything that made him feel grounded, everything that knitted his shattered pieces back together, everything that gave him any semblance of a purpose was related to Aziraphale. Maybe it was Aziraphale who challenged him to be better, to think quicker. Maybe it was Aziraphale who whispered affirmations into his ear as he slept at night, infusing the confidence to face another day into his dreams, allowing it to bleed into the very essence of him. Maybe it was Aziraphale, always Aziraphale, a goal standing just in front of Crowley, something for him to aim for, to earn, to reach after. 

And maybe— maybe it wasn’t a maybe at all. Maybe it was definitely Aziraphale. Maybe Crowley  _ knew _ that it was Aziraphale, maybe he had known even before this charade had started. Maybe some part of him had always realized that he was striving to live up to who Aziraphale was.

It wasn’t always love— oh no, it was animosity, it was annoyance, it was frustration. It absolutely wasn’t always love, but it  _ was _ always Aziraphale.

Even when they had hated each other, even when Aziraphale had turned away from Crowley, insisting that he only wrote pointless drivel, it had been Aziraphale. Back then, he had been determined to prove Aziraphale wrong— or maybe to prove him  _ right _ , Crowley still wasn’t sure. He hadn’t been settled in himself then, hadn’t known what he had wanted or who he was becoming. So many things were up in the air for him then, suspended above him as he deliberately turned a blind eye, ignored them because they weighed too heavily on his shoulders. But even  _ then _ , when he didn’t know anything else, he knew that Aziraphale’s opinion mattered to him. He might not have known what he wanted that opinion to be, but he had known that he had wanted it, had wanted Aziraphale to keep looking at him, engaging with him, he had wanted Aziraphale to stay where he was, in Crowley’s orbit and close enough to touch if Crowley wanted.

Lost in thought, Crowley almost doesn’t notice the plate that’s set down on his bedside table. It’s the scraping sound of the plate against wood that draws his attention. Margerie is fully in the room now, leaning over him and reaching to draw the covers away. Crowley considers clinging to them, considers clutching them like some sort of defense, but decides against it. 

“Come now, dear. You need to pull it back together. People get through broken hearts all the time.” She pressed a hand to his cheek and the gesture is both unfairly tender and a painful reminder of Aziraphale. 

“People do,” Crowley chokes as he presses himself into a sitting position, his head pounding once he makes it there. “But I don’t.”

Margerie sits gently on the bed next to him, tucking one leg up underneath her and the look on her face is so gentle that Crowley thinks it might splinter him apart completely. He had always been friendly enough to her, greeting her when he saw her in the hallway and holding the elevator door for her when’she wasn’t looking like she was going to make it. She had seemed sweet enough, always smiling warmly at him and making a point to straighten his jacket or hair if they ever got askew. He hadn’t considered them  _ friends _ — he didn’t have friends outside of Ana, Newt by association and Aziraphale for the brief window that they weren’t enemies or fake husbands yet— so he had been surprised when she had showed up on his doorstep. He’d been even more surprised when she said she had noticed him coming home alone— had noticed that Aziraphale hadn’t been around lately— had seen the dejected way he was walking.

It was perhaps the first time Crowley had started to consider the idea that he wore his heart on his sleeve.

He didn’t think it was true, though, even now. If pressed, he thought that perhaps the only part of his heart he wore on his sleeve was the part that belonged to Aziraphale. But the truth was that the whole thing belonged to Aziraphale but that was a truth Crowley was currently trying to drown in Golden Girls and the echoing emptiness of the unoccupied half of his bed.

“Who’s to say it can’t work out with him, hm?” She presses, her hand landing gently on his forearm, squeezing as if trying to encourage him. “Maybe getting over the heartbreak means reconciling things with him.”

Crowley shakes his head, his throat closing. “You didn’t hear the things he said.”

“No,” Margerie agrees, her gaze intent on his face. Crowley hates it. He feels like he’s being seen, like she’s looking straight into the dark corners of his newly exposed heart. “But I did see the way he looked at you.”

At that, Crowley is certain that the few remnants of his heart crack completely open, pouring out onto the bed between them. He takes in a deep breath, his lungs burning, his throat aching. It takes everything in him to hold it together— and even then, holding it together isn’t the same as being composed. It simply means that he hasn’t flopped back on the bed, kicked Margerie out and buried himself under the covers so that he didn’t ever have to face the light of another day without Aziraphale.

Crowley tries to raise one shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. He knows it doesn’t pull off the same feeling that he wants it to, but he tries anyways. Margerie, as expected, is entirely unconvinced. “Maybe looks lie.”

“No, dear.” She squeezes his forearm again, her expression softening. “Words do.”

Every fiber of Crowley, every single part of who he is as a person wants to believe her, wants to cling onto the small flicker of hope that she’s stoking inside of him. He wants to let it carry him off into the sunset, keeping him afloat when every other thought in his head, every memory— good or bad— feels like it’s pulling him under. But that’s the same dangerous game he had been refusing to play for so many years, the same dangerous game he had given into during the last two months— the one that had left him a devastated mess in his bed, refusing to face the world.

No, he wouldn’t believe it. He would extinguish that flame before it had a chance to grow into something he couldn’t ignore. He would extinguish it before he could get burned a  _ third _ time. The first time— that was something he didn’t see coming, something he couldn’t have predicted. But the second time? That was on him. And if there was one thing Crowley liked to pride himself on, it was learning his lessons. So he wasn’t going to hand the match back to Aziraphale before he’d even finished putting out the flames from the first fire. He wasn’t going to glue all of his little pieces back together and then trust Aziraphale with the hammer. He was going to learn his lesson, even if it meant never repairing his heart.

He could learn to live with a broken heart. He couldn’t survive having it break a third time though. 

* * *

There’s something about the way the air shifts in the cafe when the bell above the door jingles. Anathema feels it from where she is in the back. She can’t even see the front door, can’t possibly have any hint for who walked in but the moment the door opens, she knows. She pushes through the door that leads to the kitchen in the back and pauses before she’s even crossed the threshold completely,

Aziraphale looks like shit, which is actually a feat for him. In all the years that she has known him, she has never seen him look anything less than immaculately put together. And he’s still buttoned up tightly today, wrapped in more layers than the weather actually calls for, but there’s dark circles under his eyes, there’s a slump to his usually perfect posture. There’s something about the way he carries himself, like every step takes effort, like every remaining ounce of his courage for the day was used just to get out of bed. He looks worn down, beaten down, resigned. The air around him is filled with sadness, with longing, with something so desperate that it nearly chokes Anathema as she rushes to him, throwing the little gait out of her way so she can get to him faster.

“Where the hell have you been?” She asks as she screeches to a halt in front of him, just short of reaching out and grabbing him. “I haven’t seen you or Crowley in—“ but the rest of her statement dies on her tongue as she watches Aziraphale flinch at the mention of Crowley’s name.

Anathema’s blood seems to freeze in her veins, moving as slow as molasses through them as she watches Aziraphale look anywhere but at her. He stares down at his feet which are scuffing nervously against the ground, he watches his hands fiddle with each other, looks around the cafe to see if there are any other patrons around. He does a series of things and all of them are pointedly avoiding Anathema and making her nerves grow by the second. 

Even though she knows she’s not going to find anything, she glances over Aziraphale’s shoulder, scans the street for a familiar Bentley. There’s no beautifully shiny car, no man slinking his way in behind Aziraphale, ready to drag him off into some conversation that only the two of them ever seem to find interesting. There’s nothing but empty space and— oh, Anathema recognizes the other feeling swirling around Aziraphale, wrapping around them both and threatening to suffocate them. It’s loss, an overwhelming feeling of sadness and  _ loss _ . 

“Oh.” The word is punched out of her at the realization and she can feel the ache deep in her own gut. “Okay,” she takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders. “Go, sit down. I’ll make your tea and I’ll be there in a moment. And I expect you to tell me  _ everything _ .”

Finally Aziraphale meets her gaze and Anathema almost wishes that he hadn’t because the look in his eyes is the sort of devastated look that might haunt her for the rest of her life. “Thank you, dear girl. I do appreciate it.”

Her nerves are on fire the entire time she makes Aziraphale’s favorite tea, the years of making it for him taking over as a sort of autopilot— something she’s thankful for because she doesn’t think she would be able to focus enough to make it correctly otherwise. Her hands nearly tremble as she pours the boiling water into his favorite mug and it takes far more concentration than she actually has to stop from spilling it all over the counter. The moment the mug is full, Anathema practically throws down the pot of boiling water and walks as fast as she safely can to the table.

She slides the tea in front of Aziraphale before taking her designated spot across from him, staring at him intently across the table. He looks resigned, his hands folded in his lap and his head hung. He barely even glances up at his tea as it steeps— that alone makes Anathema want to crawl into the other side of the booth and hug him or something. She doesn’t think he’d take kindly to that, but the desire claws at her, underneath her skin. Aziraphale normally fidgets with his teabag the entire time it’s steeping, an idle motion while he talks about whatever the latest drama at the University is. And yet, as he finally looks up at Anathema again, that same devastated expression on his face, he doesn’t reach for the bag at all.

His voice is just as hollow as his expression when he answers the unspoken question— the one that Anathema doesn’t have to ask because it’s obvious, hanging between them, over both of their heads, a weight waiting to crush them both underneath it. “Crowley and I broke up.”

It’s one sentence Anathema honestly never thought she would hear. Partially because she had started to accept the idea that they would never figure out their own feelings and end up together, but mostly because she assumed that once they finally did end up together, nothing would be able to pull them apart. It hurts more than she thought it would be to be wrong.

“What happened?” She tries to sound natural, tries not to let her own heartbreak shine through. The last thing Azirpahale needs right now is to carry the weight of her disappointment on top of his own— and he clearly has plenty of it.

Anathema isn’t sure if she expects some big story, some long winded telling of a falling out they had— some explanation of how one of them misstepped in a way the other simply couldn’t forgive— or not, but she definitely does not expect Aziraphale’s simple answer. “I ended it. I couldn’t keep lying.”

“Ly—“ Anathema pauses, feeling like she’s dropped her jaw. She clears her throat, tries again. “ _ Lying _ ? Aziraphale— what—“

“It was dishonest, Anathema!” And there, finally, is the defensive streak that Anathema had been expecting in the beginning, the one that fights whenever it’s threatened, whether or not it has a solid foundation to stand on. This is the Aziraphale that she had seen square off with Crowley so many times, the one that rose to all of his challenges. The one that  _ liked _ Crowley. This was what she had been expecting to see because this Aziraphale— the one that was full of life and vigor, the one with enough spunk to fight back—  _ that _ was the Aziraphale that she associated with Crowley. “We were lying to everyone and I couldn’t live with that! I’m not a dishonest person!”

“Okay,” Anathema concedes, wishing briefly that she had made her own drink so she had something to fiddle with. Her hands feel especially empty on the table before her. “So you’re not actually married, that part is a lie. I’ll give you that. But Aziraphale, I mean, come  _ on _ . You have to admit that the rest of it— that wasn’t a lie.”

Aziraphale is uncharacteristically still across from her, staring pensively down into his mug of tea. “Crowley told me he was in love with me.”

“He is.” Anathema answers easily.

She hadn’t seen either of them in nearly a month and still she could say that with the utmost confidence. She had suspected that Crowley had feelings for Aziraphale long before they had actually gotten together and there was no way that this stunt of theirs had diminished his feelings. Crowley was— well, Crowley was a lot of things. But one of those things, one of the things he kept locked away deep inside of his heart, in that back corner that he liked to pretend nobody could see, was a hopeless romantic. When Crowley found something that resonated with his soul in some way, he clung to it desperately. And Aziraphale had always resonated with Crowley’s soul. From the very first time she had seen them together, Anathema had been able to tell that. There was something about them that was magnetic, something that just fit together, like puzzle pieces that had spent years looking for each other.

There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in her mind that Crowley had fallen completely in love in the last two months of this mess. 

“It’s only been two  _ months _ !” Aziraphale protests and Anathema notices the distinct lack of acknowledgement of his own feelings. She decides to let it slide for the time being. “People don’t fall in love that quickly!”

The argument sounds worn out, like it’s something Aziraphale has been tossing around freely, allowing it to get bent and bruised in his carelessness. It was like he had been repeating it over and over again and it had lost all of it’s meaning. There wasn’t any conviction behind it but Anathema could tell that Aziraphale  _ wanted _ there to be. He wanted to believe that it was true, he wanted to hide behind it.

Because that was the real thing that Aziraphale did with words— he hid behind them. 

His job was to analyze words, to organize his thoughts into words. Everything he did revolved around words and yet, it always seemed like words abandoned him when he needed them the most, leaving him with nothing but a flimsy shield in the shape of a half-cooked excuse that he had to come up with on the spot. Sometimes they’re harmless and Anathema is happy to politely overlook them, to allow the defenses to stand, even though she could knock through them in one sentence if she really wanted to. Sometimes though, like right now, those thin guards he has up around himself are harmful and she needs to take them away.

“Have you ever read a book?” She asks and gets a withering look in response. “Or seen a movie? Or heard of love at first sight? The reason those things are so popular is because it’s something we  _ want _ . Of course it’s possible. If you find the right person, that is.”

Aziraphale’s expression is still the withering glare but the undertone of sadness rises back up to the surface, mingling with the other emotions and Anathema knows she’s hit on a nerve. “Those things are  _ fiction _ , dear. Surely you’ve heard of it?”

“What was it you said to me once?” Anathema leans back in her seat and drops her voice to parrot Aziraphale’s own words back at him. “ _ Even fiction has its roots in reality, otherwise we wouldn’t want to read it! _ ”

“Yes, well—“ Aziraphale’s cheeks flame bright red and he finally begins to fiddle with his teabag as he searches for a desperate distraction. “I didn’t  _ mean— _ “

She probably should take pity on him, he’s clearly nursing a broken heart. But Anathema finds that she can’t do that when the broken heart was caused by his own hands and, as far as she can tell so far, completely unnecessary. She had assumed that they might need some sort of intervention to finally get them together, some clever trick to get one of them to trip up and admit their interest aloud. She didn’t think she’d ever have to patch everything back together after a love confession. 

“Alright, be honest with me here.” She sets a stern glare on Aziraphale and he sighs when he meets her gaze. It’s as much of an agreement as she’s going to get but she trusts him to tell her the truth, even though he’s going to hate doing so. “Do you believe that Crowley meant it when he told you he was in love with you?”

The words hit Aziraphale like whiplashes, each one cutting deeper than the one before. Even from the other side of the table, Anathema can see the way they bite into the flesh of his heart, tearing the already damaged muscle up even further.

“I believe he  _ thinks so _ —“

“No. You know that’s not what I was asking.” Anathema leans back forwards again, propping her elbows on the table and placing her palms flat down against it, halfway to Aziraphale’s side of the table. “But if you want to try and play that card, it’s worth pointing out that Crowley doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, and we  _ both _ know that.”

Aziraphale sighs and it seems to wear him out completely. “I know.”

“So?”

The sip of tea Aziraphale takes is clearly a deliberate attempt to avoid the question but Anathema will not be deterred. She holds steady in her pose, waiting for him to answer. The silence can stretch on for as long as he needs it to, Anathema is certain that she’ll hold out longer. That’s the thing about a guilty conscious— and Aziraphale definitely has one right now— it demands to be addressed. The silence will wear on his nerves, grating them down until they feel like live wires and he won’t have any choice but to fill the silence, spilling anything that came to his mind in a desperate attempt to get out of his own head.

He tries valiantly to hold out as long as he possibly can but it’s fruitless in the end. “Yes, I believe him.”

“And?”

“And?” Aziraphale glances up at her again. “And what?”

Anathema sighs and sinks her head into the palm of one of her hands. “What did you say when he confessed?”

In the second pause that follows— the one that she had anticipated this time— Anathema tries to picture how it could have even gone. She tries to picture what kind of thing could lead Crowley to confessing because he certainly wouldn’t do it on his own, wouldn’t do it unprompted. Crowley would no doubt think of his love as a burden on Aziraphale, would convince himself that Aziraphale wouldn’t accept it, no matter how many signs pointed the other way. The scars of his past had carved certain patterns of thinking into his mind and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t break free from them. 

“I—“ Anathema sees how much effort it takes for Aziraphale to suck in a deep breath and finish that sentence. “I told him that I feel the same.”

The world absolutely stops. Completely and utterly halts where it is in space, everything freezing around them.

“So, let me get this straight.” Anathema is suddenly sitting very upright, her spine stiff as a board as she repeats the information she’s been given as slowly as she possibly can. “He told you he was in love with you, you told him you feel the same, and now you two are… broken up?”

“Ah, that’s the short version of it, yes.”

“Well then give me the long version, Aziraphale.” Anathema cries. “Because that makes absolutely  _ no _ sense.”

And so, Aziraphale does. He tells her about his coworkers at the university, about the never-ending list of emaiils in his inbox, about the girl on the street who had been so harmless in her request for a photo. He tells her about his fears, about the way he feels like a fraud every time he sees his name attached to an article in which he talks about Crowley. He talks and he breaks down and his voice gets more hoarse with every word, like he’s starting to draw them directly from the core of who he is, like he’s ripping out the very fibers of his soul to tell Anathema. 

But he tells her more than just that, he tells her about how he loves Crowley— and he actually says the word. The shock of that alone is enough to keep Anathema from interrupting him as he talks. He tells her about the last two months, the story behind the articles they had written. She had read them all, of course— especially their Christmas series. She was their friend and she was invested in their happiness, there was no way either of them could post something that she  _ didn’t _ read. And reading their articles had been an experience.

She knew both of them well enough to read between the lines, to recognize their writing styles, to know the flow of their words and to tell when things were fighting them. They were subtleties that nobody who didn’t know them personally would ever notice, but they were there and they were enough to tell her the truth about the last two months. When Aziraphale told her that they had been a fabulous two months, that he and Crowley had created a real life together— one that felt like a living and breathing thing, one that gave them everything either of them could have ever wanted and more— she wasn’t surprised. But oh, hearing it from his mouth was so much more intimate than gleaning all of that information from subtext. 

It was hard to listen to, honestly. It was hard to watch Aziraphale light up as he recounted a story for her, only to watch the sadness set in again as he realized it was over. It was heart wrenching to feel the love in every word and to know that it now had no recipient.

“All of my stuff is still at his flat.” Aziraphale finally ends his whole detailing of the last two months. “And I’m not sure I can face him to go and get it.”

Anathema slams a hand down on the table. “You are absolutely going to face him.” She says confidently, her heart bleeding in her chest. “But you aren’t taking your stuff back. You’re taking  _ him  _ back.”

“Anathema,” Aziraphale sighs. His tea is gone now, but that doesn’t stop him from clutching the mug close to his body like he might be able to to soak up some of the last dregs of warmth that linger. “You know I can’t do that. We can’t have an honest relationship.”

“So own up to it! Tell the whole story! Hell, you two could probably publish a book on it.” She rearranges her skirts around her. “People love that kind of stuff. Nobody will be mad. Or if they are, who really cares?”

“I  _ really care _ .” Aziraphale huffs, finally setting his mug back on the table. “I will lose all credibility! So will Crowley! Nobody will read anything we ever write again.”

“First of all, that’s far too dramatic. Crowley  _ is _ rubbing off on you.” That earns her a particularly dark glare that doesn’t even make her flinch. “Second of all, what’s more important? Your credibility when you’ve been saying for at least two years that you want to retire? Or the man you’re in love with?”

“I don’t appreciate you putting it in such simple terms when you  _ know _ it’s far more complex than that.” 

“That’s the thing.” Anathema glances up as the door to the shop opens and a customer walks in. “I don’t think it  _ is _ more complicated than that. I think  _ you _ are making it that way.” Aziraphale waves her off as she stands to go free the customer and get their order started. She pauses, a step away from the table and turns back to him. “All I’m saying is that you  _ both _ have broken hearts and  _ you _ have the power to fix that.”

Aziraphale makes a noise under his breath. “I also have the power to make it worse if I say anything else he doesn’t like.” Anathema opens her mouth to respond but Aziraphale cuts her off and she knows that she won’t change his mind. “No, I think it’s better for him if I give him space. I’ve already hurt him, why take it back when I can’t promise not to do it again in the future?”

* * *

At some point after Margerie left, Crowley had moved his moping to the family room. It didn’t do anything to diminish the ache deep in his chest— in fact, staring at the Christmas tree that he hadn’t taken down yet did a lot to  _ increase _ that intolerable ache— but the change of scenery helped him breathe a little easier. He’s in the middle of contemplating opening the window for some actual fresh air, even though it’s cold enough that the snow still hasn’t melted, when he hears his phone vibrate against the table. 

He tries to ignore it, really he does. But then it dings a second time and his poor heart, sick from three days of no real answer, is too weak to resist.

With a great deal of effort— and a fair amount of dramatics, despite the fact that nobody else is here to witness them, Crowley hauls himself up from his compromised position on the couch and reaches for his phone. He’s honestly not sure why he even brought it out here, he certainly hadn’t been expecting any messages. But something inside of him had made it so that he couldn’t leave his phone behind, something inside of him had felt the desperate pull. In the rare chance that someone—  _ someone _ — did try to contact him, he wanted to be available to them.

That side of him had, apparently, been right.

The first text is a few simple words and they’re enough to rip the few stitches Crowley has managed to put in his heart in a desperate attempt to hold it all together.

_ I’m sorry. For everything _ .

Crowley stares at the message for far longer than he would like to. He doesn’t know if he should say something back, doesn’t know if Aziraphale is expecting any sort of response from him. He  _ wants _ to reply because he knows how painful silence can be. He’s sat in it for the last three days, found himself completely surrounded by it. It’s even filled the chambers of his mind, echoing of nothingness, an empty space inside of him where his heart is meant to be. The silence that followed Aziraphale’s last text— nothing more than the word  _ okay _ — had been enough to nearly drive Crowley insane. He wanted to reach back out to Aziraphale, to say something, anything to end the silence. He picked his phone up multiple times a day, making his way into their messages, thumbs hovering over the keyboard.

Eventually he always talked himself off the ledge, convinced himself to leave the chat and to put his phone down again. He does the same now, telling himself that he needs to think before he responds. Needs to think about  _ if _ he should respond. 

He clicks into the next message instead of putting his phone down entirely. He sees that the message is from Anathema, but he wouldn’t have needed to. There wasn’t anybody else who would text him  _ your door better be open, I’m on my way over with food _ . Not even Aziraphale would have sent him a message like that and there’s something about that thought that is both a relief and a travesty.

On one hand, every thought of Aziraphale hurts, like each rib has a sharpened edge, cutting into his heart a little deeper with every breath. On the other hand, it was nice to have things that were untouched by Aziraphale, things he could enjoy without feeling like he was living in some ghost of the past. It was a relief, to have things that he could still participate in, things that didn’t make him profoundly sad.

It was hard for him to put into words but he understood the feelings of it. When he had given all of his life to work and then had it taken away from him in the past, there had been nothing left for him. Everywhere he looked, everything he tried to participate in somehow tied back to his work and everything that had mattered to him or filled his time was then completely tainted, becoming something he could no longer derive pleasure from. The same thing was happening here, and he could recognize the signs of it as they bled into each other. He couldn’t look at the Christmas decorations without thinking of Aziraphale, couldn’t write a goddamn article. He couldn’t turn on any of the movies they had watched together, because then he was right there again, standing alone in the almost empty park, staring down his feet and wondering where he had gone wrong.

Crowley had gotten rejections before— both in his personal and his professional life. It really was a part of life and he knew that, could wrap his mind around that and accept that. But he had never confessed his love to anyone. And he certainly hadn’t ever had anyone confess their love to him and then immediately take it away, dangling it just out of reach like the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. What he wouldn’t give to have a bite of that apple, to taste the truth against his tongue. 

The door to his apartment jingles as it’s being opened and he hears Anathema kicking her shoes off in the entryway. She doesn’t say anything as she comes in, doesn’t announce her arrival or otherwise indicate that she’s here. She simply pads in to find him sprawled out over the couch, deposits the bags of food she had brought on the coffee table, shoving his laptop unceremoniously to the side, and then heads into the kitchen for silverware, Crowley eyes the bags, but he already knows what’s inside them. Anathema wouldn’t dare show up with anything other than his favorite. 

And honestly, she wouldn’t show up uninvited like this unless she knew what was going on.

“How is he?” Crowley asks as she plops down on the ground in front of the couch, leaning her back against it and holding a fork up into the air for him to take.

She snags the tv remote off the table and begins to flip through movies, clearly aiming for nonchalant. Crowley can’t tell if that's a good or a bad sign. “I’ve seen him better.”

That gets a bitter laugh out of Crowley as he takes the fork and reaches for one of the bags. "Yeah?”

“He misses you.” Anathema replies, her voice so quiet that he almost doesn’t hear it. He wishes he hadn’t, wishes that the words hadn’t carried to him.

Because, really, what is he supposed to do with that? He doesn’t know if it’s meant to make him feel better or worse, honestly, and he doesn’t like the taste of that uncertainty on his tongue. Of course the idea of Aziraphale missing him is both touching and trilling— the implication that he means enough to Aziraphale, that he has a steady spot in Aziraphale’s life that feels empty without him in it, that’s a lovely thought. That’s the kind of thing he wants to hear because he certainly feels that way about Aziraphale. Conversely, Aziraphale has made it clear that things are over between them one way or another and Crowley is inclined to believe him. If he can still end things after a mutual love confession, well, there’s really no coming back from that. There’s no trump card, nothing left in Crowley’s deck that he could play to change Aziraphale’s mind. His secret weapon had already been used and it had been shut down with only the slightest moment of hesitation. 

And he wants Aziraphale to be happy. More than anything else, he wants to know that Aziraphle is happy.

He doesn’t want to picture Aziraphale at this job he hates, under the boot of a boss who does not and will not ever appreciate him. He doesn’t want to think about Aziraphale eating meals alone, about him not getting his favorite snacks, not watching his favorite movies over a glass of wine each night. As much as it absolutely shreds Crowley, as much as it tears him apart piece by piece, opening him up to the core exposing the raw bits of him to the elements, he wants Aziraphale to be happy— even if that happiness includes someone else.

Because Aziraphale deserves that, he deserves someone who makes him happy.

It’s just really shitty that it couldn’t be Crowley.

“Don’t say that.” Crowley replies to Anathema, pulling a carton of food out of the bag in his hand and dropping the bag to the floor with little care. 

Anathema raises a shoulder in a shrug and picks up her own carton of food, finally settling on a movie and turning it on. “Are you going to avid him forever?”

“Not forever.” Crowley replies and he stuffs the first bite of food in his mouth. “Just until Monday.”

And as he says it, he realizes that he's made a decision about replying to Aziraphale’s text. 

“I’m sorry.” Anathema says after a lingering moment of silence and a flurry of mixed emotions swirl around inside Crowley. 

The biggest emotion— the one that wins out— is an overwhelming feeling of fondness that swells deep in his gut. He appreciates Anathema so much and he loves her for the fact that she would show up here and bust down his door if she had to in order to comfort him. There’s still that twinge though, that pang that comes with those words. He thinks back to the text he’s decided not to answer and he feels hollow all over gain, like just the memory of it was enough to carve out his insides. 

Vaguely he wonders if he’ll ever get them back. It doesn’t feel like it. 

“Not much that can be done about it.” He speaks around a mouthful of food and Anathema still has enough sense about her to roll her eyes. The movie drones on in the background and Crowley spares a moment to think about how nice it is to have something other than the reverberating silence, vibrating his bones and making his teeth chatter in his head. 

“I’ll kick his ass for you.” Anathema answers and she elbows his leg as she says it.

Crowley cracks half of a smile. “No you won’t.”

“No, I won’t.” She agrees immediately and there’s that familiar warmth in her gaze as she cranes her neck back to look at him. “But you won’t ask me to, so we can pretend.”

“You’ll never hear me say this again.” Crowley tucks a leg up underneath him and looks steadfastly at the tv, even though he isn’t seeing a single thing that’s happening in the movie. “But thanks.”

Anathema makes an exaggerated choking sound. “Gross. I don’t  _ want _ to ever hear you say that again.” And then she’s standing up and shoving Crowley by the shoulder, forcing her way onto the couch. “Now move over, it’s rude to let your guest sit on the ground.”

“Uninvited guest.” Crowley reminds her, but he scoots to the side anyways and can’t stop himself from feeling just the tiniest bit better as the day bleeds into night and he finds that he isn’t completely alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting on a Thursday is closer to getting back on track than the last few weeks so I'll take it. We've obviously got a lot of reconciliation that needs to happen here, so I hope you guys enjoyed some introspection. It's apparently my brand.
> 
> Also, if you recognize the cameo that is the lovely Margerie, you get bonus points!! If you don't know where Margerie came from, she's from another fic of mine. I got obsessed with Neil's tweet that was basically "Crowley doesn't punish his plants, he actually gives them to his old lady neighbor downstairs". And so I created Margerie and she became his best friend. And, I mean, _technically_ this is a different universe so it isn't _the_ Margerie, but I like to think that she'd take care of him in any universe so she popped in this chapter. :)
> 
> As always, my love to Naro and Bianca for listening to me to scream, encouraging me to chase these crazy ideas and for beating the words out of me when they don't want to come otherwise! I know a lot of people thought Crowley should take some time to himself to heal so I hope you guys are satisfied that he did <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.” Crowley replies as evenly as he possibly can. It’s not his most convincing performance but it’s the best he can ask for. Suddenly the Bentley is starting to make him feel claustrophobic. He’s never been more excited to see Hastur’s ugly face. “Y’know, when we were—“ _friends_ , he wants to say. But that implies that they’ve been something other than friends and even though he feels like that’s the case, it was never officially stated to be something more. “Back before all this, we didn’t text every day.”
> 
> “I suppose you’re right.” Aziraphale says after a long moment.
> 
> He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _And you know, damn well,_  
>  For you, I would ruin myself  
> A million little times 

The cold air nips at Crowley through the open windows of the Bentley.

He could roll them up, he probably even  _ should _ , but he’s absolutely not going to. He doesn’t care that it’s ruffling the hair around his shoulders, messing up his meticulously crafted messy bun. He doesn’t care that his cheeks sting, his fingers tremble— they just match his racing heart as he turns another corner far more abruptly than he actually should, cranking on the steering wheel with all of the pent up emotions that are threatening to bleed out of him. He certainly doesn’t care about the few snowflakes fluttering around the early morning breeze— he’s driving far too quickly for them to actually make it inside.

In fact, he doesn’t care about  _ anything _ .

Except for— well, except for  _ everything _ .

Because the truth is that he does care. He cares a whole fucking lot, as it turns out. He cares more than he thought he could possibly care about everything. He cares about his stinging cheeks and his trembling fingers. He cares about his hair being messed up— it was a perfectly messy bun for a  _ reason _ — and he even cares about the stupid ass snowflakes, He  _ cares _ . So fucking much it actually hurts.

Seriously, it physically  _ hurts _ . 

Even still, after a week of being left to his own devices, nobody there to stop him from licking his slow-healing wounds. Even still, after he had done his best to drown his feelings in nothing but despair— and some alcohol, truthfully, but not as much as he would’ve expected honestly. Even after pouring his heart out to Anathema and then swearing her to secrecy, only to follow it up with pouring his heart out to Margerie. He didn’t swear Margerie to secrecy though— he knew she wouldn’t tell. He also knew that she absolutely wasn’t afraid of him and if she didn’t want to swear, she wasn’t going to and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to change that. It almost made him feel a brief flash of happiness. Almost.

Because he had spent the entire week they were off laying around his apartment, doing nothing and trying his absolute damndest to  _ feel _ nothing. It turns out he’s really great at the former and exceptionally terrible at the latter. 

Like,  _ exceptionally  _ terrible.

While he had spent the entire week studiously building walls around his heart, wrapping it in chain after chain, and securing it with as many locks as he can possibly imagine, he knew that it didn’t matter. Sometime in his past— and honestly the more he thought about it, the harder it became to pinpoint exactly  _ when _ — he had given Aziraphale the master key. It didn’t matter how many different locks Crowley used to secure his heart away in the darkness, he knew none of them would be able to keep Aziraphale out. He hadn’t even gotten to Aziraphale’s flat yet and he could already feel the foundation of those walls crumbling to dust and blowing away out the open window. 

It didn’t matter how hard he tried, he knew that he wasn’t going to get over this any time soon. And  _ if _ he got over it, it was going to be a hell of a messy process.

And maybe that’s what scared Crowley the most. If he didn’t have Aziraphale any longer, he only had one thing left— himself. And damn it all to hell if he hadn’t spent the last ten or so years actively avoiding getting to know himself. If he didn’t have Aziraphale, all he had was the hollow shell of a man who hated his job and hated himself even more. Not really the best company, if he were being honest.

And sure, he could hear Aziraphale’s voice in the back of his mind telling him that he really wasn’t that bad and oh, darling, you have your moments where you’re not  _ completely _ insufferable. But oh, that didn’t make things better in the least— it made things so,  _ so _ much worse. 

Aziraphale’s flat comes into view and for the briefest flash of a moment, Crowley considers just driving right on by. They’re officially nothing but transactional partners— people tied together by nothing other than mere convenience and the fear of repercussions— so there’s really no reason he should be driving Aziraphale to work. His excuse was that the staff at the office had gotten used to seeing them arrive together and would be suspicious if they suddenly stopped. And it wasn’t a  _ bad _ excuse— they  _ would _ get suspicious, if they were even perceptive enough to notice. But there was also the possibility of them just making up some excuse as to why they had to drive separately.

At this point, what was one more fucking lie?

It’s not like anyone would know. And by now Crowley had lost track of just how many lies there were— he’d even lost track fo what the fucking lies  _ were _ because a lot of the things they had “made up” sure as shit felt real now. And the real things— mainly the fact that Aziraphale confessed his love and then still ended things— didn’t feel real at all. Truthfully, if someone were to give Crowley a sheet of paper and asked him to list all of the lies they had told in the past few months, he would fail that test. He was absolutely certain of it.

Because what was he supposed to put? Was every kiss a lie? Every lingering touch? Was every laugh forced, every secret just a farce? Was there anything real behind the nights they stayed up together, blinking blearily against the sleep that was fighting to overcome them and mumbling delirious thoughts to each other that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else? Because every one of those things had been real to Crowley. Too real, painfully real— the kind of real that left him with no foundation now that it was gone. The kind of real that made him question everything else he knew. If  _ that _ had been faked, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to trust anything he’d been told ever again.

But— But—

_ Something _ had to be fake.  _ Something _ had to be wrong, backwards, twisted. Something, somewhere— 

Because it didn’t fucking make  _ sense _ . Two people didn’t confess mutual love only to end up separated from each other by choice. That wasn’t how the world worked. So the question now haunted him:  _ where _ was the lie?

In the end, he stops in front of Aziraphale’s flat. Because he can’t bring himself not to. Because Aziraphale is now the weapon of Crowley’s choice for inflicting pain upon his heart. He stops in front of Aziraphale’s flat because he’s a pathetic, desperate man who will take any time they can get together, even if he’s left bleeding in the aftermath of it. He’s not ready to give Aziraphale up yet, that much became abundantly clear in the last week. So if driving Aziraphale to work leaves him in shambles, if it shakes the foundation he’s barely managed to tape back together, well, it’s worth it for that extra time with Aziraphale by his side. It’s worth it for the times that he can glance over and see Aziraphale’s profile illuminated by the light of the rising sun, his bright hair glowing like a halo, the angles of his cheekbones on full display. If it allows Crowley the chance to brush his fingers against Aziraphale’s thigh one more time while reaching for the gear shift, it’s worth whatever heartbreak is waiting on the other side.

He just hopes he remembers that when he’s in the throes of that heartbreak.

Aziraphale, for all of his prim and proper fussing, is almost never ready when Crowley pulls up. Their morning routine always involves Crowley showing himself into Aziraphale’s flat and then standing there, shoulder jammed against the doorframe as he stared in exasperation as Aziraphale fretted over the decision of which tartan bowtie to wear that day. So it’s a surprise when he screeches to a halt, his tires nearly locking with the force of it, only to find Aziraphale standing out front already, wringing his hands anxiously in front of him. 

It’s clear as day, even from his spot in the Bentley all the way down at the curb, how nervous Aziraphale is to see him. It’s practically a neon sign that’s flashing above his head, announcing it for the whole world to see. If he keeps up acting like this, the whole office is going to know their secret within ten minutes of their arrival back to work.

On one hand he gets it, he’s not going to pretend that he isn’t nervous to be here with Aziraphale, no matter how much he also desperately wants this. It turns out emotions are stupid and complicated and multiple conflicting emotions can exist at the same time, no matter how little sense that actually makes. He really misses the time when he was successfully able to pretend he had no emotions. Ignorance is bliss, all that. He’d never really bought into that until this very moment, staring at Aziraphale as he slowly approaches the car and then hesitates at the curb as if he’s unsure if he’s invited into the Bentley or not. 

“Get in, an—“ Crowley stops himself mid endearment, ducking his head as he quickly mumbles, “Aziraphale.”

If Aziraphale notices the change, if his face crumples and his shoulders slump, Crowley doesn’t see. He’s too busy staring steadfastly at the threads on the steering wheel and wondering why it hurts so much to stop himself from using the affectionate term that comes so easily to him now, as if it’s always just waiting on the tip of his tongue. 

“Good morning,” Aziraphale murmurs as he closes the door far too gently behind him. It’s almost like he’s afraid that any loud sound, any abrupt movement is going to shatter this delicate thing. Crowley isn’t sure how to tell him that it’s already shattered so there’s no point being gentle now.

He also doesn’t know how to tell Aziraphale that there isn’t anything  _ good _ about a morning where they aren’t together, so he just shifts the car into drive and replies with a gruff “Morning.”

They merge back into traffic with nothing but static silence between them and Crowley feels immediately suffocated by it, despite the open windows and the cool air whipping through the car. There’s the distinct feeling of about a million unspoken things filling the car with them, crushing them under their weight, but Crowley is determined to leave it that way. If Aziraphale wants to talk about them, he’s more than welcome to bring them up himself but otherwise, Crowley is determined to stare out the window and actually focus on the traffic in front of him for once.

It’s not lost on him that this is what he had expected their arrangement to be like in the beginning. He had expected awkward silences and conversations that felt like pulling teeth. More than anything else, he’d been expecting dark glares and a lot of Aziraphale’s ire for getting them into such a mess. He hadn’t been expecting to get warm kisses good morning and long kisses good night. He hadn’t been expecting all of the things that had fallen in between those. 

And yeah, he’d expected those silences to be weighted, but he had never thought they’d be as terrible as they are now, punctuated with the memories of all the other mornings they had spent together in the Bentley. He had never thought something could cut as deep as this silence, freezing him to the bone. Not even his worst expectations had been as bad as this.

Finally, once the silence stretches so tight between them that Crowley is starting to think it’s choking off any opportunity of them ever speaking to each other again, Aziraphale chances a glance at him and asks a very timid, “How have you been?”

In essentially every other circumstance except this one, it’s a completely benign question to ask. There’s a reason it’s the most common conversation opener in the history of, well,  _ ever _ . But in the face of it now, Crowley isn’t honestly sure what he’s supposed to say. There’s no point in the polite responses. Partially because he and Aziraphale are— were? Had been?— past that point and partially because they’ll both know it’s a boldfaced lie before it even leaves his tongue completely. But there’s also no point in telling the truth because it will help no-one and make both of them feel like shit. 

So he goes for the best response he can come up with, throwing the words together before he can talk himself out of it. “I’m— hanging in there.” It sounds about as awkward and disjointed as he feels but he figures it’s the best midground he can possibly find. “Yourself?”

He expects Aziraphale to find some sort of polite response, too. He expects him to chew his words, to feel them on his tongue before he says them out loud, carefully crafting a sentence that says just enough without giving away too much. It was always Aziraphale’s specialty, after all, saying  _ exactly _ what he meant without any flourish or ambiguity.

So he’s absolutely ill prepared for the large sigh that Aziraphale heaves, for the way Aziraphale seems to nearly crumple in his seat, his perfect posture flying out the window with the snowflakes. “I’ve been worried about you.”

And  _ oh _ , that isn’t just a knife to the gut. It’s a knife to the gut that Aziraphale  _ twists _ . 

“No reason.” He manages to say, impressed that the words were more than an unsteady wheeze. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

He doesn’t mention Margerie and the soups she had brought him.

“Yes. Yes, of course you are. It’s not that I ever doubted that!” Aziraphale rushes on, his hands doing that anxious wringing again. Crowley glances sidelong at him as they pull up to a red light and thinks that this awkward conversation, this thing that dances around the real point at hand,  _ this _ is worse than the silence that had been suffocating him earlier. This is somehow even further away from the life he had started to consider normal. “It’s just, well— you usually text me every day.”

Every day they’re apart, maybe. Which previous to this last week was rare at best. 

“Didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.” Crowley replies as evenly as he possibly can. It’s not his most convincing performance but it’s the best he can ask for. Suddenly the Bentley is starting to make him feel claustrophobic. He’s never been more excited to see Hastur’s ugly face. “Y’know, when we were—“  _ friends _ , he wants to say. But that implies that they’ve been something other than friends and even though he feels like that’s the case, it was never officially stated to be something more. “Back before all this, we didn’t text every day.”

He sees out of the corner of his eye when Crowley draws his mouth into a hard line and Crowley doesn’t even allow himself to wonder what words he’s biting back. Letting his imagination run wild has proven to be more destructive than anything else in his arsenal and there’s something to be said about learning from past mistakes. Crowley’s never given it much of a try but better late than never, he figures. 

“I suppose you’re right.” Aziraphale says after a long moment.

He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the drive.

* * *

Aziraphale had known that Crowley would be upset. Crowley had every right to be upset with him and the way he’d handled things. Hell, Aziraphale was even upset with himself for it. So he had expected that of Crowley. 

But when he’d thought of Crowley upset, he had imagined Crowley hissing sharp words between his teeth and sending deadly glares over the rims of his sunglasses. He’d pictured cold shoulders and short answers. He’d thought Crowley being upset would be the same as Crowley being  _ mad _ .

But Crowley wasn’t mad, not even a little bit. There wasn’t anything scathing in the way he spoke to or looked at Aziraphale, there wasn’t a single shard of ice on his shoulder. Instead, Crowley was  _ sad _ . And that, Aziraphale learned in less than a second, hurt so much worse. 

Because now, instead of looking at him with the fire of hatred and betrayal, Crowley didn’t look at him at all. Instead of whispering curses under his breath, Crowley just shrugged to acknowledge that he’d been listening. Instead of being animated and full of vim and vigor, Crowley was listless, passionless, heartless. Crowley looked like the kind of person he’d always described himself to be and it was sharper against Aziraphale’s heart than any blade could ever be. 

It made Aziraphale want to take back everything he’d said. Morals be damned, he’d sacrifice every last one of them if it meant that Crowley would smile again. Truly, he would. But he had a sneaking suspicion that it was too late now, the damage was done. There was no taking back the words that were branded into Crowley’s heart, a black mark against the kind personality Crowley tried so hard to keep hidden. 

Aziraphale knew a lot about language and he was nearly certain that there was no combination of words, no expression of regret or remorse that could possibly smooth over the jagged edges of Crowley’s newly broken heart. There was no way he could string something together that properly expressed his dilemma, that could demonstrate his regret at the situation, that could convey his  _ grief _ . Because that’s really what he felt like he’d spent the last week doing— grieving. 

He was grieving a warm body pressed against his, the feeling of gentle fingers squeezing his own, the melody of a brilliant laugh first thing in the morning. He was grieving someone to spend his time with, someone who listened to his stories and complained about his boss with him. But more than that, he was missing the spark for life that Crowley had given him, the desire to just  _ be _ , wholly and unapologetically. He was missing the way Crowley  _ saw _ him and  _ listened _ to him, the way Crowley supported and believed in him with no hesitation. He missed the way Crowley had made him look at himself.

Because now when he looked at himself, he didn’t see anything good. 

“Oi.” Crowley is sitting a few feet away from Aziraphale in his own desk chair, head cradled in his hands. It’s the same three or so feet that has always separated them but suddenly it feels like miles, like a chasm opening up between them, yawning wider and wider until there’s no hope of passing through it. Theoretically, Aziraphale could simply reach out and touch Crowley if he wanted to, but something tells him in actuality he’d never be able to make it. “Will you  _ stop?” _

Hastur, who has very pointedly been irritating Crowley in the most mild ways he can manage for nearly ten minutes now, clicks his pen one more time for emphasis. “Stop what? Unlike  _ someone _ , I’m just trying to work on my article.”

“If you click that bloody thing one more time, I’m going to shove it so far up your arse—“

Aziraphale reaches across the chasm. 

Crowley jumps when he feels Aziraphale’s fingers brush his arms, spinning wild eyes onto his hand. 

“It’s not worth it.” Aziraphale says gently and he’s referring to Crowley picking a fight with Hastur but he means so much more than just that. He hopes Crowley understands the hidden meanings. He also hopes Crowley doesn’t.

Crowley lets out a shuddering exhale, shifting so that his arm comes out from underneath Aziraphale’s hand before dropping his head back into his hands. He has every right to pull away, it’s a natural protection instinct, after all. Aziraphale has wounded him deeply— the only logical response Crowley could possibly have would be to pull away, to raise his walls and strengthen his armor to prevent further damage. But that knowledge does nothing to make it hurt any less. That knowledge doesn’t lighten the rock tied to Aziraphale’s ankle, dragging him to the depths of the ocean of regret that he now called home.

A moment stretches between them, but it’s another one of the ones that feels like eons instead of the simple blink of an eye. Aziraphale feels like he could’ve relived his whole life in the length of that one second. He doesn’t, mostly because he doesn’t want to. The only parts of his life he wants to relive are the ones with Crowley— the ones he had willingly given up. The ones he no longer had any right to relive, no matter how badly, how  _ desperately _ he wanted to. 

Hastur, mistaking this as a victory— or perhaps simply having a strong enough death wish— grins sharply at Crowley and reaches across the aisle between them to pat a condescending hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “It’s alright, buddy.”

Crowley moves fast as a whip, smacking Hastur’s hand away from his shoulder and standing up so abruptly that his chair clatters to the ground behind him. The question is in Hastur’s eyes and on the tip of Aziraphale’s tongue but Crowley is stalking out the door before either of them can turn it into anything more than just abstract wondering. He doesn’t even take his coat with him.

Aziraphale stares at his retreating back, completely unsure of what he’s supposed to do. The line between what was expected of him by others and what was accepted from him by Crowley was starkly drawn now. In the past few months, the line hadn’t even existed at all. What everyone expected of him as a husband so far had been something that had been willingly given and willingly received. But now? Well, Aziraphale had the same sinking feeling in his gut because he knew with unrivaled certainty that  _ he _ was the reason Crowley was in such a foul mood.

A good husband would chase their other half outside, soothing whatever ailed their soul.

But Aziraphale was not only a bad husband, he  _ was  _ the ailment.

The problem, though, was what everyone would think if he just stayed sitting here, refusing to follow Crowley and soothe his frayed nerves. It would lead them to—

An idea blooms in Aziraphale’s mind.

It’s terrible, horrible, it makes him feel sick to the very core of who he is. But it’s perfect. It will get them out of the mess they currently are drowning it. It’ll likely make Crowley hate him but since Aziraphale is fairly certain that he can’t actually hurt Crowley any more than he already has— there’s only so small the shards of his heart can be crushed and Aziraphale, regrettably, thinks he’s already found that size— there’s no point in trying to find a delicate way out of this. 

“Aren’t you going to—?” Hastur asks, gesturing towards the elevator that Crowley had just taken down. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s setting Aziraphale up perfectly for his last act in this elaborate scheme.

At least, he thinks bitterly, the acting won’t be disingenuous. “He wouldn’t want me out there with him right now.”

And so it begins, The last stages.

* * *

The rest of the day goes by in silence bordered by pointed looks from Hastur. It’s clear that it grates on Crowley’s nerves from the moment he comes back in the building to the moment they finally leave. He bites back whatever comments Aziraphale is certain he’d love to say, but they’re clearly there, on the tip of his tongue. Once he even whips his head around, mouth opening like he’s about to say something, but he quickly snaps his jaw shut and swivels back to the same blank page that’d been staring at him all day long.

Despite everything going on between them, Aziraphale had expected the drive home to be a relief to Crowley, a break from the strained front they had to upkeep all day long. It isn’t, though. The entire drive, Crowley’s shoulders are a tight, stiff line, his hands gripping the steering wheel with so much force that his knuckles turn white. Aziraphale longs to reach over and smooth his hands across the back of Crowley’s, to work out the tension that has his shoulders nearly up to his ears. Aziraphale knows that he can’t, that he’s forfeited that right, but he still has to clasp his hands tightly together to stop himself from doing it anyways.

Because— well, that was the whole problem, wasn’t it? Aziraphale doing things he shouldn’t do. He shouldn’t have ever gone with Crowley’s lie in the first place, he shouldn’t have gone to that first meeting with Beelzebub, shouldn’t have agreed to the job. He never shouldn’t let himself touch Crowley, kiss Crowley, love Crowley. He never should have done any of these things, but he did and look at where he found himself now. 

Because where he found himself now was hell. There really was no better way to put it.

He found himself sitting next to the man he was in love with, the man who was in love with him too and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He  _ wouldn’t _ . In fact, he was sitting next to the man he was in love with, on the way back to his own flat, mentally preparing himself for a conversation that he knew was going to go absolutely horribly. A conversation that would no doubt lead to a fight, to Crowley storming out and slamming the door. 

Maybe this time he wouldn’t come back. Aziraphale tried to tell himself that would be for the best.

His flat came into view and Aziraphale took in a shuddering breath as the Bentley slowed and then eventually stopped. He thought back to the work day, to the long silences and the way Crowley had pointedly avoided his gaze. He thought back to the idea Hastur had given him— unknowingly, of course— and tried to find the same conviction he’d had back then. It was so much harder to stay dedicated to his idea now that Crowley was next to him again. Living, breathing, beautiful in a way that was nothing short of completely unfair. 

“Right, well.” Crowley navigates the Bentley to a stop along the curb outside of Aziraphale’s flat but he doesn’t even put it into park, instead just holding his foot on the brake as he makes a vague gesture towards the flat.

Aziraphale glances at him. Looks away. Takes in another one of those shuddering breaths and looks at him again. Crowley isn’t returning his gaze and it’s perhaps the only reason Aziraphale is able to get the words out of his mouth. “Actually, I had an idea for how we could handle this— situation, if you will. I was rather hoping you’d come in so we could discuss it?”

A series of emotions cross Crowley’s face but with his sunglasses in place, Aziraphale can’t quite make out what they are. He mourns the loss of Crowley’s bare eyes, the intimacy that was Crowley’s trust, the casual way they could be together. 

One thing is certain, even with his glasses in place— Crowley looks like he’d rather do just about anything besides oblige Aziraphale’s request.

But Crowley is Crowley and he’s unfailingly kind, even when he absolutely doesn’t want to be. It only takes a second for him to decide, to cave in to what Aziraphale wants the way he always has. Without saying anything in response, Crowley shifts the Bentley into park and takes his foot off the break and it’s all the confirmation that Aziraphale needs. He stares at his hands on the wheel for a long second before appearing to gather his courage and throwing the door open before hauling himself out. Aziraphale follows suit, much less dramatically. He closes the door behind him and makes his way around the car and towards his flat, feeling as Crowley falls into step just behind him. His heart aches as he pulls the door open for himself— something he hasn’t done in months as Crowley has always done it for him.

They walk in silence to his flat and Aziraphale unlocks the door with trembling fingers. He nearly drops the keys on two separate occasions and lets out a few choice words under his breath as he fiddles with the keys for what feels like an eternity. If Crowley hears the curse words, he doesn’t react. Aziraphale tries not to let his heart crumple in his chest.

Finally the door swings open and they step inside. Aziraphale takes a moment to take off his coat and scarf, hanging them up on the hook inside the door before neatly depositing his shoes on the mat. He strides down the hall and towards the kitchen but only makes it a few steps before realizing that Crowley is just hovering awkwardly inside the door, shoulders still hunched up around him as if he could potentially just disappear.

“Aren’t you coming in?” Aziraphale asks, glancing towards the kitchen where the wine is. He’d very much like some wine for this conversation.

Crowley moves the slightest bit and Aziraphale thinks he’s shaking his head no, but he can’t honestly be completely sure because the movement is no miniscule. “What’s that idea you had?”

It’s like the words are living beings with their own sets of teeth and claws, shredding Aziraphale to bits at their will. He reaches a hand out to the side and braces it against the wall as if it could possibly steady him. “Right, of course. No sense in taking up more of your time than necessary.” When Crowley doesn’t say anything in response, electing instead to just stare at the shoes he’s scuffing idly on the ground, Aziraphale decides to just go for it. “I think we should pretend to get divorced.”

Well, that was effective at getting Crowley to look at him.

He whips his head up so fast that his sunglasses almost dislodge from their perch on his nose. “What?”

“Well, it really makes the most sense, don’t you think? If we want a clean separation from this lie and each other,” Aziraphale glances away when Crowley flinches, “Then we need to find a way to publicly end it. So, we should get a divorce.”

Crowley opens his mouth like he’s going to say something again but the words don’t seem to make it out of his throat. He squints at Aziraphale, the top of his eyes visible now that his glasses have moved slightly and Aziraphale swears he can see the wheels turning in Crowley’s mind. 

Finally, Crowley swallows and even to Aziraphale, it looks like a painful gesture. “Alright.” He says after a moment and his words are strained and garbled. “I see your point. But— how?”

Well, truth be told, Aziraphale hadn’t gotten that far. He hadn’t honestly expected Crowley to take to the idea so easily. He tells himself that he has no right to feel disappointed that Crowley didn’t fight for him.

“Well, it would have to be a public sort of thing.”

“Obviously.”

“So we just pick something people usually get divorced over and— and go with that?”

Crowley lets out a sigh that’s so deep, Aziraphale fears that he’s going to collapse entirely after it. It’s like he’s breathing out the pain from the very depths of his soul, not just his heart, like he’s letting out every negative emotion he’s ever felt. He doesn’t look like he feels any better after.

“If you have a plan, Aziraphale,” Crowley pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as his sunglasses ride up towards his hairline. “You have to actually  _ have _ a plan.”

“You didn’t have one when you claimed to be my husband!” Aziraphale retorts immediately.

To be entirely honest, Aziraphale isn’t sure if that’s true or not. They’d never really talked about that moment. Things had been tenuous at first and by the time they had smoothed over, they’d found a sort of groove and there was no need to discuss what had possessed Crowley to do such a thing. It had also allowed Aziraphale to avoid answering why he’d gone along with it. Crowley had asked once, right after it had happened, but Aziraphale had given some sort of vague response to dodge the question and Crowley had let it go. And then he’d never asked again, never insisted on a legitimate answer— not even in the middle of the night when Aziraphale was half asleep and far more loose-lipped than he would ever be during the day.

And that was perhaps the biggest blessing Crowley had given him. (No, Aziraphale knows as soon as he thinks it. Absolutely not. Crowley’s  _ heart _ is the best thing he had ever given Aziraphale, but Aziraphale stomps that thought down lest his mind latch onto it too tightly.) If he had been genuinely asked, Aziraphale doesn’t know what he’d say. Because he wanted to rile Crowley up the same way Crowley was trying to rile him up? That was absolutely true, but it begs other questions. Namely, why was Crowley able to rile Aziraphale up so easily and why did Aziraphale feel the need to return the favor instead of just ignoring Crowley’s attempts? And  _ those _ were the questions Aziraphale didn’t have immediate answers to. And he sure as hell didn’t want to do enough self exploration to figure them out.

“I did have a plan!” Crowley replies with just as much venom, throwing his arms out to the side. “And then you obliterated all of them by agreeing with me! My  _ plan _ was just to bother you a little bit, same as always. You were supposed to huff and roll your eyes and I’d grin cheekily at Beez and make some remark about how you  _ wished _ I was your husband before making my exit.  _ That _ was my plan!”

Okay, Aziraphale can’t really tear that apart. It was likely that Crowley had planned for exactly that. After all, anyone in their right mind would expect Aziraphale to rebuff him immediately and scramble to explain how untrue it was. Even  _ Aziraphale _ , in any other moment than that one— and all the ones since, apparently— would expect that to be his reaction. But in that moment he really had lost it and everything since then had been widely out of his control. 

There’s a lot of other points that Aziraphale should be making right now, a lot of other arguments that should be filling his mind, but the only thing that snags his attention is— “You would’ve told Beez that I  _ wished _ you were my husband?”

“That was the plan, yeah.”

Something inside Aziraphale breaks a little further and he feels himself smiling despite the moment at hand, despite the absolutely colossal mess that everything is. “I  _ wished _ you were my husband?” He repeats, and there’s a little bubble of hysterics behind the words. “You? Who argued with me over everything? You? Who pushed all of my buttons purposely? Why would I have ever wished that?”

Aziraphale doesn’t mean the words as harsh as they come out. In fact, he doesn’t mean them harshly at all. Because he knows now how wrong he was about Crowley. He knows now that he absolutely should have been wishing for Crowley to be his husband at that moment, at so many moments in their past. But at that time, at the exact moment that Crowley had made that remark, Aziraphale had thought of him as nothing more than the frustrating man who seemed to know exactly where all of his buttons were.

“Right.” Crowley says and it’s clear, the moment he shutters his heart off from Aziraphale. Aziraphale can practically  _ see _ the walls being built right in front of him. 

And this is good, this is how it should be. If they’re going to fake a divorce, they’re going to need it to be believable. Nothing makes it more believable than these sort of bitter, raw emotions festering between the two of them. The more the chasm grows between them, the more people will see the truth to their lie, and the easier it will be to sell.

But Aziraphale is a stupid man who has too many complicated feelings of his own. Aziraphale is a stupid man who wants something that he has decided he can’t have. And he knows he’s the only one standing in his own way, but he can’t very well go back on his word now. His integrity won’t allow him to do it. But that’s the thing about emotions, about logic, about the heart and the mind: they rarely lined up. Aziraphale had known this before but he’d never felt it as strongly as he did right now.

His mind told him to leave it be, his heart begged him to soothe the newest wound he had cut into Crowley’s heart. He wanted Crowley, he loved Crowley, he wouldn’t let himself have Crowley. All of these things warred inside of Aziraphale and he didn’t know where to look, which to listen to, how to feel. It was like every time he made one decision, it had some sort of irredeemable backlash that he couldn’t reconcile. If he left it be now, he would be hurting Crowley permanently. If he did say something to heal the wound, or at least to make it the tiniest bit shallower than it was already, he would do nothing more than confuse Crowley and make this mess even bigger. 

There wasn’t a way to win and he wonders if there ever was going to be a way to win. He wonders if he was doomed to losing from the very moment that he agreed Crowley was his husband. Had he just been slowly losing for months now?

It certainly didn’t feel like it. Nothing they had done in the last few months had felt like a loss. 

No, kissing Crowley felt like fire, not a loss, burning him down to the bare bones of who he was as a person. No, holding Crowley felt like comfort, not a loss, as he was allowed to finally just  _ be _ without expectations. No, laughing with Crowley felt like flying, not a loss, as he finally knew what it felt like to be truly happy in a moment. Even arguing with Crowley, bickering with Crowley— even  _ that _ didn’t feel like a loss. The only thing he and Crowley had ever done that really made Aziraphale feel like he was losing something was this moment.

He could see it so perfectly: Crowley turning and walking out the door, the emptiness that would stand in his place. He could see it and he hated it, it made him feel sick. Because if he let Crowley leave now, he was certain that Crowley wouldn’t come back. And that was something he couldn’t live with. It was something he  _ should  _ live with, it was something that he owed Crowley, honestly. But he couldn’t do it.

For now, his heart won out.

“I didn’t know, then.” Aziraphale says quietly, his head bowed. He doesn’t deserve to look Crowley in the eye as he says this. “I didn’t know what you were really like, I mean. Back then you were just a man who made a point of disagreeing with me at every possible opportunity. Back then you were just frustrating and difficult. I didn’t  _ know _ that I would be lucky to call you my husband. But now—“

Crowley appears to be hanging on his every word and he seems to hate it. “But now?”

“Now—“ Aziraphale reaches for Crowley, closes the gap between them. This time, when his hand lands on Crowley’s arm, Crowley doesn’t startle, and he doesn’t pull away.

* * *

It’s fire. Everything is on fire. Crowley is a match and he’s burning down to the nub, setting the world ablaze around him. 

Aziraphale’s hand is the gasoline, stoking his fire as it slides slowly up his arm. Crowley watches it in wide-eyed silence, the trail his hand takes leaving a series of tingles in its wake. For a brief moment, everything Aziraphale was saying, his stupid fucking idea, all of it is just gone. There’s only the two of them and this point of connection that’s growing hotter with each passing second.

“But now,” Aziraphale mumbles after a moment and Crowley had almost forgotten that he was even waiting for a response from Aziraphale at all. It takes all of his mental willpower to bring his mind back to what they had been talking about. “Now I know that you are so much more than that. Now I would wish I could call you my husband.”

And really, it’s such a stupid thing to say.

Crowley knows he should be mad, bloody furious, really. He knows that he should lay into Aziraphale to tell him that he’s more than welcome to continue calling Crowley his husband if he’d bother to get his head out of his arse. He knows that he should have any of these initial reactions, but he doesn’t.

Something in Aziraphale words, something in the earnest vulnerability in his gaze knocks down the walls Crowley had just finished building and he finds that he can’t stop himself from leaning into Aziraphale’s touch, from letting his hand continue to glide higher— over his shoulder, up his neck, to the curve of his jaw. He shouldn’t be letting this happen, shouldn’t be breathless as Aziraphale draws him forwards and kisses him.

He kicks out of his shoes in somewhat of a clumsy haste, unwilling to separate his mouth from Aziraphale’s for even a moment. He leans into the kiss, allowing Aziraphale to support his weight as she fiddles with his shoes, balancing on one foot and nearly toppling over. Aziraphale takes his weight easily and steadies him with gentle, patient hands. And then, the moment his shoes are off, they’re moving. Crowley tries not to think about how well he knows this flat, tries not to think of the fact that they can both navigate it with perfect ease, their lips still locked together and their hands exploring.

**[*skip*]**

Shirts fall to the ground in the hallway, Crowley’s coat thrown over some table. Pants are unbuckled, belts tossed aside and suddenly they’re in Aziraphale’s room, standing at the precipice of a metaphorical cliff and Crowley finds that he’s ready to jump, parachute or not.

“We shouldn’t,” Aziraphale murmurs but it’s very unconvincing when he’s pressing it into the skin of Crowley’s neck with kisses.

Crowley can feel Aziraphale’s hard cock pressed against his hip, can feel the tremble of Aziraphale’s fingertips as they ghost across his bare back, skimming over his shoulders. He knows Aziraphalee wants this as much as he does. He also knows there’s heartbreak waiting at the bottom of the fall. Because this is  _ Aziraphale _ he’s talking about— the man who doesn’t change his mind. This is Aziraphale and Crowley knows that this is only a momentary lapse in judgement for him. He can already imagine the biting remarks that will come once this is over, the words that will be branded into his back as he walks away. He  _ knows _ this, but he chooses to jump anyways.

Because love’s a battle and Crowley’s certainly never made it out of any fight without bruises in the past.

“We should,” He replies. And then he allows himself to fall back onto Aziraphale’s bed to make a point.

Aziraphale hesitates for only one moment, barely even the length of a heartbeat, not even long enough for Crowley to take in one of his jagged breaths, Aziraphale hesitates and Crowley can see it on his face, the moment he gives in to the weaker side of him.

At least he can find comfort in the fact that they’re both going to hate themselves in the morning.

The bed dips as Aziraphale places a knee on either side of Crowley’s hips and straddles him, a hand pressing against his chest and gently lowering him against the mattress. It’s hot and it’s tragic and Crowley bites back a sound that could either be a moan or a sob, he isn’t entirely sure. 

They make eye contact for a brief second before Aziraphale leans down to kiss him, and in his gaze Crowley can see the same sadness reflected there. He can feel it in every kiss, like Aziraphale is trying to memorize the planes of his body because he’ll never see them again. Each touch is like a goodbye, like the last moment they have together. Crowley tries to feel like Aziraphale isn’t pulling apart his ribs and pulling his heart out with his bare hands. He’s not very successful, but the feeling of Aziraphale’s hands smoothing across his stomach, Aziraphale’s hips grinding down into his— that’s. Distracting enough. Crowley latches onto those feelings, onto the physical reactions and buries himself in it. Because that’s something he knows how to handle, a release he knows how to find.

He doesn’t have a goddamn idea what to do with this well of sadness inside of him, but he certainly knows what to do about both of the hard cocks sliding against each other through the fabric of their pants. And right now, he’ll take any solution he can get, any small win to make him feel like he isn’t completely out of control and spiraling down into the depths of something he fears he’ll never escape.

With this determination, Crowley pulls one elbow out from underneath him, reaching his hand across Aziraphale’s plush stomach and palming his cock through his pants. Aziraphale’s lips stutter on his collarbone for a second, his startled breath fanning out across Crowley’s neck. Crowley moves his hand slowly, pressing and dragging and relishes in the way Aziraphale’s hips jump involuntarily against his palm. Tilting his head back, Crowley pulls his other arm out from underneath him and falls unceremoniously flat on the mattress, Aziraphale’s dark and hungry eyes tracking his movements the entire time. 

Crowley reaches up and threads his fingers into the soft white curls at the nape of Aziraphale’s neck and pulls him down into a searing kiss, their stomachs and chests pressing flat against each other in the process. It forces Crowley to remove his hand from Aziraphale’s cock, but he doesn’t go far. He loops his hand around the back and gently teases his way into Aziraphale’s pants, the hand cupping an ass cheek and squeezing. Crowley gets to taste the responding groan on his tongue.

For a moment it’s almost frantic, the way they rut against each other, grinding and pulling, closer, closer,  _ closer _ . For a moment it’s a desperate, raw thing, like they’re both clinging onto this for all that it’s worth, afraid that if they pause even long enough to take a single breath, everything is going to fall apart around them. But somewhere in that moment, one of them decides that this needs to be savored. Crowley can’t tell if it was his idea or Aziraphale’s— all he knows is that their kisses are deeper, their movements slower as they drag across each other with purpose. And when Aziraphale reaches for the button on Crowley’s trousers, Crowley does nothing to stop him.

They both undressed quickly, bared to each other in a way that they had done many times by now. But this time feels different. There’s the sadness that still punctuates every movement they make, but there’s more than that. There’s a certain finality in the air, the feeling of a last time. Crowley swallows down the words on his tongue as he leans up to run his hands over Aziraphale’s chest, to gently brush his fingers against the hair that grows sparsely there. 

Aziraphale watches his hands with parted lips and Crowley finds that it’s all he can take. He kisses Aziraphale again, his hand finding Aziraphale’s newly freed cock. He relishes the way Aziraphale’s whole body shudders in response to the touch and wastes no time setting the pace he knows will drive Aziraphale insane. 

It only takes a few pumps before Aziraphale stops kissing him, hunching over his body and panting against his lips instead. Crowley can hear the changes in his breathing, the way it hitches and then leaves him in a whoosh. He can hear the jagged edge to it that comes with Aziraphale’s pleasure cresting.  _ God _ , he even knows what Aziraphale’s  _ breathing _ means. He really is a fool to have gotten in so deep.

“Darling—“ Aziraphale chokes out the word and the sudden use of it is like a slap in the face. Crowley’s hand freezes at once and he turns wide eyes up to Aziraphale, wishing immediately for his sunglasses.

“I—“ Crowley isn’t sure what he’s going to say. Is he supposed to apologize? Had he crossed some boundary? Aziraphale had seemed like a willing partner all the way up until this point, he had a hard time thinking he had forced Aziraphale into something he didn’t want.

“Darling.” Aziraphale pants again, clearly too lost in the high to realize the damage he’s doing with that nickname. “Be a dear and lay back, would you?”

“I— what?” Crowley asks numbly, his hand still hovering in the space between them.

“Lay back.” Aziraphale repeats and this time it’s less of a question and more of a command.

Despite everything, Crowley feels a thrill go down his spine and he does as he’s told, scooting so he’s fully on the bed before laying back against the frankly absurd number of pillows Azirpahale has on his bed. He watches as Aziraphale reaches for the bedside table, pulling open the drawer and reaching inside. Crowley doesn’t have to ask to know what two things are going to be coming out of that drawer.

Sure enough, the rubber and bottle of lube land on the bed next to him a moment later, and then Aziraphale is climbing over him again. 

“I want to give this to you.” Aziraphale murmurs, already kissing along his shoulders again, hand flushing against his lower abdomen and making Crowley’s cock twitch in anticipation. “Will you allow me to?”

“Course.” Crowley replies, tongue thick and heart pounding erratically in his chest.

He doesn’t see the smile on Aziraphale’s face, but he feels the ghost of it pressed against his chest as Aziraphale kisses his way down towards Crowley’s waiting cock. He makes it there quickly, but each kiss he leaves along the way is lingering and searing, burned into Crowley’s skin as a brand— a mark he’ll never be free of. In the past, that though made Crowley’s heart jump with excitement and a feeling of belonging. Now his heart drops with the pain of that realization. 

The moment Aziraphale makes it all the way down, his hand finally closes around the base of Crowley’s cock and squeezes. The anticipation up until this moment had built up enough that Crowley can’t help but throw his head back and moan long and low at just that first touch. He’s barely managed to pull his head back together when he felt Aziraphale’s tongue on the underside of his cock, licking a long swipe up to the tip and across the slit. Crowley’s hands fist in the sheets around him as Aziraphale licks a second time and then sinks his mouth down around his cock completely.

His mouth is warm and wet and all thought flees Crowley’s mind as his sole center of focus becomes that feeling and that feeling alone. He feels his back arch of the bed, the sheets twist around his hands, his toes curl. He feels the way Aziraphale’s tongue works him, the way his hand pumps the remaining part of his cock that Azirpahale’s mouth can’t reach. He is so caught up in  _ feeling _ that he doesn’t hear the cap of the lube bottle pop open. It’s not a problem, not even a little bit of a problem, but one second he’s just trying to remember to  _ breathe _ and the next he feels a finger nudging at his entrance. And then he’s not just  _ on fire _ , he  _ is _ the fire, all the way to his very core.

The feelings are so much, too much, absolutely unbearable and Crowley doesn’t want them to stop. He rocks his hips against Aziraphale’s finger, mumbles something between moans that may or may not be a request for more fingers, even he can’t be entirely sure. But Aziraphale understands him anyway, somehow, and suddenly there’s another finger inside of him, and then another a minute after that. Crowley feels like he’s being split open, feels like he’s a volcano one second away from erupting. He feels like he’s a natural disaster, a force to be reckoned with, but at the same time he’s a puddle under the ministrations of Aziraphale’s talented hands. 

“Aziraphale— Angel—“ He doesn’t even notice the nickname slipping off his tongue. All he knows is that in that moment, it tastes about as sweet as Aziraphale feels. “Angel, if you don’t stop—“

Aziraphale takes his cue and slows his pace, fingers and mouth coming to a complete stop after a moment. Slowly he draws himself back up, pulls his mouth off of Crowley’s cock, but he keeps his fingers inside Crowley. He wiggles them, curling them and pressing against that spot he had dedicated time to finding the first time he’d been in this position. He’d found it once and then seemed to memorize it, never needing to look for it again. 

“Are you ready?” Aziraphale asks, and there’s so many emotions written into the lines of those words that Crowley does not have the time to decipher or process. He just nods.

It takes a second, but Aziraphale pulls his hand back finally. This time, when the lube cap is clicked open, Crowley hears it. He watches as Aziraphale slicks it on his own hard length and then lines up at Crowley’s entrance. He opens his mouth, likely to ask for permission one more time, but Crowley just hooks his heels behind Aziraphale’s hips and pulls him home.

The stretch is painful, burning, the physical embodiment of everything his emotions have been feeling for the last week. It’s like a physical release to the thing he hasn’t known how to deal with and this time, when the sob rises in his throat, he doesn’t do anything to stop it. Azirpahale tries to halt, to pull away, his hands smoothing over Crowley’s cheeks as if he can possibly find what’s wrong in Crowley’s expression. He probably can, Crowley thinks, and he doesn’t want Azirpahale to have that chance. So he pulls him down into a searing kiss and rocks his hips in a demand for more. Aziraphale, gripping Crowley’s shoulders with bruising force, obliges.

This time it stays frantic and desperate. They cling to each other like they could possibly fuse their bodies together, like they could become a single being to never be separated. Crowley digs his fingers into Aziraphale’s back, his shoulders, the curve of his hips. He grips with all of the strength in his body, arching his back so that he’s flush to Aziraphale’s chest as he sets a brutal pace, pouring everything he isn’t saying into every thrust of his hips. They kiss when they can, and the rest of the time Crowley buries his face into Aziraphale’s neck, some vain hope that it might hide the emotions that are threatening to bleed out.

He can feel his own pleasure cresting low in his stomach, can feel the tightening coil that’s only moments away from releasing. He mumbles something against Aziraphale’s shoulder— he’s not sure it’s actually words this time— and Aziraphale responds by gripping Crowley by the hips and pulling him down for every thrust up. Every thrust hits that sweet spot inside of him and suddenly Crowley is coming, cock untouched except by their stomachs. He sees stars behind his eyes as he rides the crest of pleasure all the way to the other side, coming down to find that Aziraphale, too, had finished and was now bracketed above him, panting. 

**[*end skip*]**

For a long moment, the cloud of pleasure stays around them, warm and hazy, obscuring anything else that is normally between them. For a moment, everything is okay. Crowley reaches up to press a hand over Aziraphale’s bare heart and the gesture seems to draw Aziraphale out of his euphoric state of mind. Slowly, Aziraphale shifts his weight onto one hand, reaching his other one up to press over top of Crowley’s. If it weren’t for the way Aziraphale's entire expression crumpled, it would be a tender moment.

“We really shouldn’t have.” Aziraphale finally whispers.

The world shatters around Crowley, tiny splinters biting into his skin, cutting him apart. He had known this was going to come with heartbreak, that Aziraphale wasn’t going to change his mind just because they’d had a good fuck. He’d knowingly entered into this with the knowledge that it would hurt when he hit the bottom.

Well, he’d hit the bottom. And it fucking  _ hurt _ . 

“Right. Yeah. Big mistake.”

“Crowley, I’m serious,”

“No, no, of course.” Crowley pulls his hand back abruptly, Aziraphale’s fingers grazing his skin. This time the fire of his touch feels more like a burn. “Big mistake.”

Aziraphale heaves a sigh and shifts away from Crowley, crouching back on his heels and looking down at Crowley’s messy stomach. “Crowley—“

But Crowley won’t hear it. He can’t hear it. Not now, not like this. He can’t hear whatever bullshit excuse Aziraphale is going to give him. He hasn’t finished healing from the last one, hasn’t even come close to closing that wound. He doesn’t need a new one, a deeper one. 

“Listen, I’ll figure out what we’re gonna get divorced over, okay? Probably something obvious, like me never listening to you when you talk.” Crowley crawls off the bed, dodging Aziraphale’s hand as it reaches for him. “That’s not even a stretch, is it? You’ve been saying all along that this—“ he gestures to the area between them as he hauls his trousers back on. “Was a lie. And I sure as fuck didn’t listen, did I?”

He doesn’t even bother finishing dressing. He grabs his things off the ground and heads for the door, leaving Aziraphale behind before he has a chance to utter another word.

* * *

This was a terrible mistake.

There were few things in his life that Aziraphale was sure of currently but he was sure that this was the biggest mistake of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I now going to start every chapter with Taylor Swift lyrics? Apparently, yes.
> 
> Hi! I know I've been gone awhile and for that I apologize. If you also read 12 Days of Falling in Love, you already know that I was sick, and then briefly better, and then sick again. And that life has overall just been a lot lately and I've just been trying to tread water instead of trying to swim. I want to thank those of you who reached out to make sure I was okay, that's very sweet of you and I appreciate it so much! I also want to thank you guys for being unfailingly patient with me! I know I took a break right in the middle of the angst which is a really hard thing to leave you guys sitting with, so I'm sorry for that. Unfortunately I come back with more angst, so I'm not really soothing those wounds xD
> 
> If you follow me on twitter, you know that I said awhile ago I was going to switch this fic to bi-weekly updates instead of weekly. Now that I've gotten back into the groove of writing it, I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with it. Obviously I'm going to finish it and I don't think it'll take me longer than two weeks for any future updates, but I don't want to promise anything right now. I've burned myself out on writing in the past and I really don't want to do that here, so I'll just spend a little e bit of time feeling it out and kinda finding a new routine and I'll let you know once I figure it out!
> 
> Sorry for more heartbreak, though. I still promise to soothe it eventually <3
> 
> As absolutely always, thank you to my wonderful spouses (hanap and naromoreau) for allowing me to scream to you about anything and everything and for being there the encourage me and cheer me on when I was ready to come back here. I will never deserve either of you, please know I love you to the moon and back <3

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](https://jenanigans1207.tumblr.com/), though I'm less active there. If you want to talk to me, I'd recommend [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ineffably_jen), where I'm very active. I often post snippets of future chapters on twitter, too. I'd love to see you there :)


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